


On Yggdrasil’s Branches

by CatalenaMara



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol, Asgardian original characters, Canon Divergence - Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Canon divergence in advance of Infinity War, Fix-It, Grief/Mourning, Infinity War, Infinity War AU, M/M, Marvel Universe, More characters to be added later, More tags to be added later if needed, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Refugees, That hug scene canon didn’t give us, Thor: Ragnarok (2017), infinity war fix-it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-04-20 00:29:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 46,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14249142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatalenaMara/pseuds/CatalenaMara
Summary: In the aftermath of Asgard’s destruction, when the hours go by and Loki hasn’t returned, Thor fears the worst.   When Loki does return they must find a way to start anew while leading their people to a new home.  (Mid-credits scene?  What mid-credits scene?)  (Infinity War?  Forget that!  Loki and Thor and Heimdall and all the Asgardians deserve a better destiny and a big win.)Many, many thanks to my betasTenayaandMuriel_Perun.





	1. Chapter 1

“Do you See him?” Thor turned to Heimdall whose golden eyes still held fierce determination, as befit the finest of Asgard.  In the glare of the harsh ship’s light Heimdall looked centuries older, his face weathered and worn.   Thor, with a shock of sorrow, realized anew that Heimdall was one of the few warriors still alive.  More than a warrior – Heimdall’s magic, one of Asgard’s most powerful treasures, had been the key to saving so many of their people.  Without his guidance, Thor would never have been able to make it back to Asgard in time to stop Hela’s voracious ambition.  Without Heimdall having led so many to safety, most of Asgard’s people would have perished. 

Heimdall didn’t ask who Thor was referring to nor did he comment on Thor’s open anxiety.  He took a moment to compose himself, to stand still, to let his vision range.

Thor waited tensely for his answer, every nerve sparking with fear.  When he had found a moment to look back at Surtur’s destruction, the fire giant was crashing his sword through the exact part of the palace where he knew Loki had left the _Commodore_.  That area had instantly been obscured by flaming debris.  Fear had seized him then, but he’d shoved it aside.  Surely Loki had had enough time to escape the Vault and return to the _Commodore_ and take off before Surtur wreaked his destruction.  

But when Asgard had exploded and Loki had still not joined them, Thor’s fear had magnified a thousandfold. 

When hour after hour had passed and Loki had not returned to the freighter Thor had been seized by the terrifying conviction that Loki had perished in Surtur’s flames.  If he had –

Loki would have died a hero’s death, a glorious death, and would live forever in the halls of Valhalla.  Thor would see to it his sacrifice was celebrated by all.

But despite the evidence of his eyes, Thor still clung stubbornly to the belief that Loki had escaped.  Loki had eluded death twice over.  Surely he was now on his way to join them. 

Heimdall, his golden eyes far-seeing, said, in a calm, understanding voice, “I see him.  He is alive.  He is some distance away in the _Commodore_ , moving ever further away from our location.”

Thor swallowed.  Anger, joy, disappointment, and relief competed for predominance.  Joy and relief surfaced first:  Loki had escaped.  He need not mourn him one more time.  Disappointment followed:  Loki had once again abandoned him.  Anger was a brief flicker, immediately extinguished.  Had he expected Loki to behave any differently?  Yes, he had come to their rescue.  Thor had forgiven him everything in that moment.  But now all his doubts came rushing back.  Had he truly believed Loki would ever change?

He swallowed again.  Yes, he had.  And once more that belief had been unfounded.  But thanks to Loki’s return to Asgard, almost everyone Heimdall had safeguarded during Hela’s siege was safe on board the huge freighter. 

Loki was the only one who could have done what he had in the Vault, warded as it was against all intruders save the Royals and their chosen guards.  They owed him their lives.  Could he now grudge Loki’s choice to once again follow his own path?

No.  He couldn’t.  Hadn’t he told Loki as much, on Sakaar?

He nodded to the Watcher.  “Thank you.”  Heimdall inclined his head, his face betraying little.

Thor stayed active during the chaos of those first many hours, walking through the ship to get an overview of their resources.  Korg wasn’t much help since he and his fellow ex-gladiators had only been on the freighter a few hours themselves.  Heimdall stayed at Thor’s side the entire time, reporting on all he Saw, his Vision constantly sweeping the area for any approaching vessel.

They’d quickly moved the ship away from destroyed Asgard.  Massive chunks of stone, some ten times the size of the freighter, had spun wildly off in all directions.  They’d barely escaped the maelstrom of debris. 

Once out of range, he’d ordered the ship’s sensors to be on full alert for any approaching vehicles.  The surviving members of Odin’s Council had stepped forward and were now organizing the survivors and supplies and mapping out the vast ship.  Still blank-eyed and hollow-faced with shock compounded upon shock, the remaining family groups had staked out their own areas in the freighter’s vast hold, while those left without kin huddled together in small groups with their kith.  The room was eerily silent, except for an occasional child’s sob, as the magnitude of everything they had lost - the massacre of Asgard’s warriors, the destruction of their world – began to truly take hold.

The sheer amount of work to be done was endless, and there was no time to waste so Thor had set all thoughts of Loki aside.  Decisions needed to be made, the ship’s destination being the prime concern.  Where on all the branches of Yggdrasil could they seek refuge? 

On his return from his fruitless search for the Infinity Stones he had become aware that all was not well with the Nine.  They were experiencing the same sort of chaos that had occurred after his destruction of the Bifrost as opportunistic pirates had staged raids and political factions seized the opportunity to advance their causes.  On having his suspicions confirmed that Loki had seized the throne, he’d damned Loki for being so negligent.

Now, after everything that had happened, Thor knew he needed to learn as quickly as possible from the King’s remaining councilors full details about everything that had happened during his absence.  What had Loki done?  What had he chosen to leave undone?  What was the current state of affairs with the other Realms?  Could they find allies, perhaps take refuge on one of the Nine? 

The people of the Nine would be in shock too, the bonds that had held them politically to Asgard now severed.  Hela’s revelations that the golden glory of Asgard had come at the expense of the blood and tears of entire civilizations had shattered every belief he’d had about Asgard’s glory.  Which Realms would still be their willing allies?   Which Realms would rejoice at the destruction of Asgard?  Jotunheim, certainly, but how many others?   With Asgard gone, would their allies turn into enemies?

He considered the complicated politics of Alfheim and decided that he needed to know much more about their current situation.  Vanaheim was their closest ally – perhaps –

He was seized with grief sudden and powerful for the loss of Hogun, Vanaheim’s finest warrior, for the loss of Volstagg and Fandral, for the loss of so many, many others, for the loss of his father, for –

He found himself leaning against an exposed girder, gripping it so tightly it held the imprint of his hand once he finally let go.  He sucked in a breath, once, twice. 

Then he got back to work.

Many hours later when finally all seemed quiet and as much as could be done had been done, he retired to the small set of rooms that the Council had found suitable for him as his own chambers, rooms which, he suspected, had belonged to whomever had commanded the freighter in its previous use.  More decisions had to be made, but it was agreed that aside from Heimdall and some of the others who understood the ship’s workings and who would remain alert, it would be best if all others sought whatever rest they could find in whatever disturbed sleep they were permitted.

He hadn’t protested when Eir had followed him into his chamber.  Most of her vǫlur had been among the saved, and they had immediately set to work canvassing the survivors for injuries.   Deprived of most of their healing equipment, they still had their innate healing magic and whatever healing stones they’d carried on their persons at the time of evacuation.  They’d put both of these to use on those who had been wounded during their flight from Hela’s berserkers or in the final battle on the Bifrost.

Eir ordered him to sit while she worked her magic.  He had been oblivious, after the first initial agony, of the pain where his eye had been, but it had now returned, along with a pounding headache and a slight but disturbing dizziness caused by the change in his perspective.  Thanks to Eir’s ministrations, the pain and dizziness receded.  But now that he was sitting still while she tended to his other wounds the strangeness of his altered vision came to the fore of his mind. 

He hadn’t even thought about it, after the first shock.  The overwhelming power of the lightning, the new ability he had to slip through the air on his own, without the aid of Mjolnir, the need for battle had obliterated all thought of anything else.  He’d fought as hard as he possibly could, for Asgard, for his people, with the vision of his father’s words of faith giving him energy to push past the pain.  The past hours had more than proved to him he could fight one-eyed.  Certainly his father had for centuries. 

But now that he was sitting quietly the loss of half of his vision came to the fore of his mind, and with it, the realization that he was near exhausted.

When Eir had completed her work and left, she was replaced by some of his father’s greybeard councilors who had come to discuss their status and bring him food and drink.  He was relieved to learn that, though the main hold had fortunately been empty when Loki and Korg had commandeered it, leaving room for the Asgardian refugees, the huge freight ship had contained, in addition to smaller storerooms filled with exotic metals and gaudy artworks and elaborate clothing, a large supply of foodstuffs both ordinary and exotic.  There was been an ample supply and variety of alcohol as well, though Thor had every confidence Valkyrie would drink them dry well before they arrived at whatever destination they eventually chose. 

He asked about Banner and Valkyrie and learned that they had taken possession of one of the larger chambers in the crew section of the ship.  What was her actual name anyway?  He supposed he could call her Valkyrie the same way he could call an Einherjar “guard” – with a sudden pang he realized again they were no more – but he had always chosen to respect his soldiers by learning as many of their names as possible.  He certainly wasn’t going to call her Scrapper 142.  He would have to ask her, once things calmed down.

After the Councilors left, he’d tried to rest, closing his one eye – but that made the parade of recent horrors all the more vivid.   Jittery, exhausted, unable to even think about sleep, his body and mind surged with the need to take some action.  He stood, thinking to leave his chambers again, walk the length and breadth of the ship again, when the sight of his own reflection caught his attention.

He stepped closer to the mirror, staring for a long moment at the stranger’s face in the reflection, unable to tear his gaze from the evidence of how everything had changed.  He didn’t remember when he had last looked at his own reflection.  Sometime before his sojourn in Surtur’s realm.

He raised a hand to his cheekbone, just beneath the patch covering his ruined eye – and saw his father’s face in his vision, smiling at him, giving his benediction, turning away.

He lifted his hand higher to run it over his shorn hair - and saw the shattering of Asgard to rubble.

His doing.  His decision. 

The right decision. 

They were alive – thanks to his brother’s timely arrival – and to his own sudden determination to turn his nightmare visions into reality.

Those visions had haunted him, goaded him, spurred him on.  First, on his futile quest for the infinity stones.  Then, following that path of death and destruction, all the way to Muspelheim with Surtur.  But once he’d taken the fire giant’s crown, the immense relief had been instantaneous.  He’d done it.  He’d spared Asgard from Ragnarok.

He’d never anticipated it had only been a postponement.  Never imagined the doom truly upon them.

Never imagined he’d be the one to choose the destruction of his home.

To save all that was left of his people.

He lowered his arm to his side, staring into his one tired eye. 

And, despite himself, he could not stop thinking of Loki.

Loki had said it true: “Two sons of the crown, set adrift.” 

They had both said it.  Though he had hoped that by goading Loki by agreeing with him that their paths had truly diverged he would make his brother realize that more connected them than separated them; that he would remember who he had been and consider who he could be.  When Loki had, once again betrayed him, though Thor had been prepared this time, he’d realized there was no reason to think they could ever find common ground again.  When Loki had arrived with this great ship to their rescue, that hope had flared into near certainty that he still had one of his blood beside him. 

He should have known better.

Loki was alive.  That was all that mattered.  Even if Thor never saw him again, he was alive.  He needed to resign himself to that truth, to accept it.   Loki was never going to change.  Loki did not want to change.  And there was nothing Thor could do to alter that fact.

He realized he was staring blankly into the mirror.  It reflected the room behind him.  So small.  Less than a third of the size of his private receiving chamber in his chambers at the palace – and that image brought another pang of loss.  One more thing he would never see again.

All the mirror reflected was a small, empty room.  Rather than meeting his own gaze, he looked instead at the table beneath the mirror that contained an assortment of bottles filled with various types of alcohol, which had been brought by the people who had accompanied his Councilor.  He realized, right now, all he wanted was a drink.  Just something so he could rest.

He reached for a bottle.  A motion in the mirror distracted him, and he stared, surprised and yet somehow not, at the sight of Loki’s image.

He turned suddenly, bottle stopper in hand.  His brother was standing there, hale and well and smiling.

A surge of emotion filled him.  Joy, unsullied by anything else.  “If you were here I’d hug you.”  He threw the stopper directly at Loki’s image.

Who reached out and caught the stopper and smiled.  “I’m here.”


	2. Chapter 2

Shock, like his own lightning, ran through Thor.  He moved without thinking, arms already outstretched.  Loki waited for him, his stance relaxed.  Loki’s smile widened, and Thor answered with a broad grin.  He crossed the space in two steps, then reached out toward Loki’s face, for a moment hesitating, for a moment disbelieving, for a moment certain his hand would go through Loki’s image. 

His fingertips touched Loki’s cheekbone.  He felt warm skin, hard bone beneath.  For a fraction of a second longer he brushed his fingers gently along Loki’s face, Loki watching him intently.

Overwhelmed with joy, he followed his promise with deeds and pulled Loki into a strong embrace.  Loki’s arms came around him with equal strength, and for a moment they held each other without moving.

The feel of Loki’s body – the tickle of Loki’s breath against his face – so strong, so solid – so _real_.  Thor’s hands moved from Loki’s shoulders to his waist to mid-back, the feel of that so-familiar, but subtly different body intoxicating, overwhelming.  When was the last time he had held him like this?  Far too long ago. 

Loki’s arms around him, the warmth of his cheek, the texture of his black hair, so real, so valued.  Thor pressed Loki even closer.  He‘d promised Loki a hug, but now he couldn’t let go, and Loki showed no sign of wanting to step back, to release himself from Thor’s grip.  The familiar scent of Loki’s hair filled his nostrils and all he could think was that he now held in his arms all of home he would ever have again.  He wanted to laugh, he wanted to weep.  He held on like Loki was a raft he could cling to in a sudden endless turbulent sea.  Loki’s arms remained tight around him, just as desperate for his touch.  Thor buried his face in Loki’s shoulder, breathing in the scent of his skin, groping for words, finding none.

Loki’s fingers were digging deep into Thor’s muscled arms, and when Thor finally pulled back and stared into his brother’s eyes, Loki’s lips parted.  An instant later, Loki covered Thor’s mouth with his own, a featherlight touch at first, and then he fully claimed Thor’s mouth.  Thor, shocked, froze entirely still for just a moment.  Then he was returning the kiss, deepening it.  He felt Loki’s harsh inhalation and the sudden shift of his body.  An instant later Loki’s tongue was plundering his, and the familiar feel, the familiar taste, that knowing of him that no one else truly did, brought back a thousand memories of them doing just this and so much more, so many years ago.

Loki’s hands skimmed down Thor’s back and loosened their hold.  Thor stayed where he was, his arms still clasped around Loki’s back.  Loki broke the kiss and retreated a half step back, and Thor reluctantly loosened his grip.  Loki stared at him with fever bright eyes.  Though Thor thought he’d gotten used to the change in his vision, there was a craziness in the lost perspective.  For a moment Loki’s face swam in and out of focus.  He was suddenly afraid if he let go Loki would disappear again.  He felt his fingers pressing into the leather of Loki’s clothing, wanting to keep him close.

Loki made no move to deepen the embrace again.  His expression briefly turned lost, then confused, then a bright brittle patina concealed whatever he was feeling.  That too changed, back to an expression that shifted from sorrow to speculation.

Thor didn’t even try to interpret what was going on in Loki’s mind.  He’d failed so often in the past.  He just kept smiling, kept staring into Loki’s eyes. 

Loki took another half-step back.  Thor pulled in a deep breath.  The taste of Loki’s mouth still lingered on his.  He reluctantly took a small step back as well, but found that though he had trailed his hands down Loki’s arms, his fingers would not let go of Loki’s hands.

Loki, however, pulled one hand free and caressed Thor’s cheek just below the eyeplate.  “Brother,” he said, and his voice was so full of emotion Thor couldn’t possibly decode it.

“Brother,” Thor replied, putting all his fears and joys into that one word.  He took a long moment just to drink in the sight of his brother.  Had it been only a few short years since his aborted coronation?  He felt centuries older.  He looked at Loki as if he were seeing him entirely anew.  Loki looked stronger, more solid. Not the younger brother, who had barely reached his majority on the cusp of Thor’s aborted coronation, but a man grown.  He realized that, even on Sakaar, Loki had looked calmer, if not truly at peace with himself, more like who he had been before all this happened.  More like the brother he remembered with such love than the mad raging thing Loki had been during those last minutes on the Bifrost or the hollow-eyed scarecrow-thin stranger who had so ferociously opposed him on Midgard.

Or the weight of Loki’s body in his arms on Svartalfheim –

Thor swallowed.  “Where were you?  When you did not return, I feared…”  Thor left the sentence trail off, unwilling to finish it, but the perceptive look in Loki’s eyes proved Thor wasn’t nearly as good at lying as he thought he was.

“That I wasn’t coming back.” 

“That you were dead,” Thor said stoutly.  He was still holding one of Loki’s hands.  He tightened his grip. 

“That too,” Loki agreed, his eyes narrowing.  “Though you have improved in lying.  I wouldn’t have thought it of you.”

“It’s not a lesson I wished to learn.”  Shame filled him for an instant, of the lies he had told to manipulate the Hulk, to manipulate Bruce, and he set them aside.  It was all too clear he had needed these lessons in kingship; lessons Loki knew instinctively, and that somehow, on some deep level, he had begun to understand.  How had what had formerly been alien to him suddenly become so easy?

Thor sighed, feeling himself on treacherous ground.  He let go of Loki’s hand, turned, and poured drinks for both of them.  He offered Loki one, who accepted and took a sip.  “You’re here.  You’re actually here.  But I saw Surtur’s sword destroy the part of the palace closest to the Vault, where you left the Grandmaster’s ship.  Nothing was left.  I thought you must have escaped, but after the hours went by I feared you dead.  What happened?”

Loki ran one finger along the side of his glass.  “I reached the ship and had just set off when the explosion occurred.  The force of it flung me off some distance and it took some time to determine where I was and how to return.”  He abruptly drank down the contents of his glass and set it back down on the table with an audible thunk.  He stared at it for a long moment, and when he looked up he was gazing at some unseen, distant point.  “When I did return to what was left of Asgard,” his voice roughened for an instant, “this ship was no longer there.  So I needed to trace your path.  All of this took some time.”

Thor felt the odd sensation of tears pricking at only one eye.  He set his own glass down and took Loki in his arms again.  Loki held tight, a sound that might have been a sob escaping him.  Thor’s breath caught in his throat.  He moved a hand to the back of Loki’s neck and pressed their foreheads together in the old familiar gesture.  When finally the hug ended, Thor saw the sheen of tears in Loki’s eyes as well. 

For a moment Thor thought Loki might kiss him again.  Instead, Loki stepped away.

Thor busied himself by gathering up their glasses and a couple of bottles.  Loki looked back at him and Thor motioned them to a small table.

“What next?” Loki asked, after they were seated, and there was a world in what he was not saying that Thor could not interpret.

“What indeed?”  Thor replied.  “Decisions need to be made.  We need a new home.  Our people need hope.”

“ _Our_ people?” Loki asked.

Thor looked at him with surprise.  “Do you deny it now?”

“No.”  Loki passed one hand over his face, lowered it to the table.  “Not for some time now.” 

“I’m glad.”  Thor rested his hand in the center of the table.  After a moment, Loki patted it with his own, then pulled it away.  “I’m glad you came back.”

“Are you truly?”

“How can you doubt it?”

Loki looked at him sharply.  “You’re a liar now.  I see it in your face.  You didn’t think I would return.”

Why was Loki still worrying at this subject?  Thor felt a surge of frustration that Loki refused to let it drop, but kept that feeling at bay.  He took a long pull of his drink to keep himself from responding to Loki’s baiting with the harsh words he had used in the past.  He now understood it was just that sort of instinctive response to frustration that had led him into trouble before.  “You’re right,” he said in a calm even tone.  A line furrowed between Loki’s brows, and Thor raised a hand, gesturing their old war signal for ‘ _wait’._   “After Heimdall told me you lived, he also said you were heading away.  How could I think other than that you were leaving?”

Loki shrugged and toyed with his glass.   “I gave it some thought,” he admitted. 

That hurt.  Thor took in a sharp breath at the pain of it.  From the perceptive look in Loki’s eyes, he knew his pain had not gone unnoticed.  His fingers curled tightly around his glass.  He lifted it, drained it, poured another.

From nowhere Loki pulled out the bottle stopper and began tossing it over and over again.  “I thought it would be simpler.  Vanish again, one more time.  You should have welcomed my absence.  Having me back won’t be easy.”

“Of course it will,” Thor said and Loki gave him his ‘you are such a blind fool’ look.    He grinned, finally feeling the effects of the drink.  Whatever was in that bottle it was Asgardian strong.  “You’re so stubborn.  If you feel that way, then why did you come back?”

Loki brought a hand to his face and rested the index finger just below his lip.  He stayed silent for a moment, seemingly lost in thought.  “Truth?  I wanted to prove you wrong.”

“I’ve been wrong about a lot.”  Thor offered him a winning smile.

“Norns, how I would have loved to hear you say that a few centuries ago.  A few years ago.” Loki sighed and set the bottle stopper down on the tabletop.

Thor recognized that morose look on Loki’s face; he understood now what it often presaged.  “You were right all along,” he said, feeling a surge of regret.

Surprise flashed across Loki’s face.  “Well of course I was.”  He showed his teeth in a smile.  He paused, then curiosity plainly itching at him, added, “About what?”  He looked as if he regretted the words the instant they left his mouth.

“I was a fool.”  Thor saluted Loki with his glass and took a long swallow, enjoying the way it burned all the way down.  “I probably still am.  I want to do better.” 

“You have a good way to go.”

Thor laughed.  “Thank you.”  His grin broadened at Loki’s exasperated expression.

“For what?”

“For admitting I’ve made progress.”  Loki huffed, but a smile hovered on his lips.  “You saved us all,” Thor continued earnestly.  “You’re a hero.”

Loki preened and gave him an ironic smile.  “That I am.  Who could have foretold that?”

“Admit it,” Thor was feeling quite mellow now.  “You like it.”

“It does have its rewards,” Loki drawled.  He stood, taking a moment to collect more bottles from the side table.  He sat back down, opened one, and refilled both their glasses.

“Better rewards than watching the same play over and over again?  Or – ” a thought occurred to Thor, “Did you have more than one?  You wrote them, right?”

“Ah but plays have a certain delicious predictability to them, when the players are good.  It always ends the same way.  I’m always the hero.  There are laughs at the right places, tears at the right places, and lots of applause.  And yes I did.  Wrote them.  It.  No, there was only one.”  Loki frowned at his glass, clearly blaming it for his brief stumble in words.  His expression cleared and he brought it to his lips.

“Write another one.  One where you’re the hero.  And _live_.”

Loki peered at him over the rim of his glass. 

“Everyone will love it,” Thor assured him.

Loki’s gaze changed, became troubled again.  “It’s easy to be a hero.  It’s hard to stay one.  Boring.  Too predictable.”

“You will never be boring,” Thor assured him.  He was feeling delightfully mellow now, the massive burden he’d been shouldering somehow lighter in his brother’s presence.  He felt as if he’d been feasting and drinking after a long battle and was ready for more.  Those had been wonderful days –  that fierce high after battle, the drinking and feasting and boasting.  The way the drinking halls had been filled with all his shield brothers – their cheery faces, their hearty laughter, the calls for “Another! Another!”  The sound of breaking crockery.  Fandral draped with women.  Volstagg devouring whole boars and bragging about his deeds to all who would listen.  Hogun quiet but not grim, drinking, and quite possibly deigning to smile.  The way the evenings often ended by bedding many willing familiar wenches. 

Though nothing had been as satisfying as the pleasure of the one he had to chase and draw out of his lair, had to approach past many familiar obstacles and convince with inelegant words, until finally Loki would deign to bed him and then did so in full measure. 

He looked at Loki’s lips, the taste and feel of Loki’s mouth lingering on his, the strength of Loki’s body in his arms, that tight, desperate embrace only moments before.  A flicker of desire flared.  Images flashed through his mind – the feel of that alabaster-pale skin over taut muscle beneath his exploring hands – Loki’s touch, that jolt of magic which made everything brighter, more intense – Loki’s face above his, that triumphant gleam in his eyes as they fucked, his own ecstatic roar as he came –

He was half-hard and his face clearly showed his thoughts because Loki gave him a wicked grin.  But Loki’s smile faded and he began tossing the bottle stopper again, over and over.  And Thor remembered, with a jolt of sorrow, those days were long gone.  He had never truly understood why things had changed between them. 

Thor’s mood abruptly shifted as the good memories became tattered, worn, faded, like an ancient tapestry in full daylight.  Thor clung desperately to this fragile sense of calm, but the feeling tore apart like rotten cloth, fell apart like seiðr-eaten weapons.

All those memories – of a past irretrievably lost.  Never again.

Everything reversed and other darker things became clear.  Loki’s madness and what followed – Loki’s hand, releasing Gungnir and falling – Loki disappearing into infinity – Mother’s death – Father on that grassy plain overlooking the ocean on Midgard – how was it possible he would never see Father again? –  Asgard shattering at his command –

“Stop thinking so much.”

He heard Loki’s voice from a distance.  “You should talk,” he mumbled.  Loki’s face was blurred, and Thor blinked away tears.  He took another drink.

Some interminable time later, when the contents of another bottle had vanished, and vestiges of pain still lingered, he wondered if it was possible to drink enough to truly forget.  He said so to Loki, who had spent the past few minutes staring at his empty glass.

“I…”  Loki looked up, blinked, focused on Thor’s face in surprise.  “I wish that hadn’t happened,” he mumbled.

Thor couldn’t possibly guess which of an infinite possibility of things he could mean.  “What?”

Loki gestured at his face.  “Your eye.  Norns!  Can Eir – “

“No,” Thor said morosely.  “No, she can’t.  It’s gone, forever.  Just like Mjolnir.”

“Well,” Loki said, “as for that, given a source of uru – granted, not an easy task – and some skillful dwarves –  and an exceptionally good sorcerer…”  His lips curved in an immensely self-congratulatory smile.

Thor brightened at the possibility.  His right hand curled, as if he could feel her handle.  “Do you think it’s possible?”

“Certainly.  All it would take is sufficient gold and time.  The mold may still exist.  Shall we to Nidavellir?  The dwarves, admittedly, are not best pleased with me, but they may listen to you.”

Thor’s face darkened.  “But it wouldn’t be the same.”

“Nothing ever is.  And then there is the problem of sufficient gold – of which we currently possess none…”  Loki fell silent again and Thor leaned back in his chair, his eye sliding half shut.  That singular feeling was so odd. The pain of his missing eye was gone, thanks to Eir, but its absence remained shockingly fresh.  He wondered if he would ever get used to seeing with only one eye.  He wished he could talk to Father about this, about what it would be like to adjust to this change in vision.  He wished he could talk to Father about many things.  He wished that he could escape from the sorrow, the deep sense of loss that faced him at every turn.  But he had to be strong, for his people.  He had to be –

He hadn’t realized he’d said some of that aloud until Loki said, “Not always.  Not with me.”

He stared at Loki, not comprehending the idea.  He realized dimly how tired he was, how drunk.  That was a surprise.  He looked down at his empty glass and realized he finally felt like he could sleep.  He looked up at Loki, and felt a powerful surge of sentiment.  He would love to hug him again, right now, and would if he was actually able to stand up.  He realized he was smiling stupidly.  He didn’t care.

Loki rolled his eyes.  “You should get some sleep.”

Loki’s words so perfectly mirrored his thoughts it took him a moment to realize he’d heard them, not thought them.  He struggled to rise.  “I think it’s time to sleep.”

“That’s what I just said.”  Loki stood as well and headed to the door.  Thor caught his hand.  “Where are you going?”

“To find a place to sleep.  If they haven’t all been taken.  This part of the ship is a warren.  I’ll find something suitable.”  Loki’s face was pale in the dim light.  He looked as exhausted as Thor felt.

Thor was suddenly gripped with the fear Loki would disappear as soon as he was out of sight.  “Stay.”  He needed Loki here; _needed_ him to be close by.

“Are you sure?” Loki was giving him a peculiar look.

“I don’t want to wake up and find I’ve dreamed you were back.” Thor wanted to shake him, wanted to kiss him.  He wanted more than anything the touch of Loki’s breath, his flesh, his physical reality beneath Thor’s hands.  “You came back.  Will you stay?”

“Do you want my word?  We both know what that is worth,” Loki said bitterly.

“No.  I don’t want your word.”  Loki looked openly surprised and Thor went on, “I’ll not ask for any pledge.” 

“Is this a test?”

“You truly think me that scheming?”

Loki burst out laughing.  “Not the Thor I knew.  But who are you now?”

“Tell me freely, if you like, or say nothing at all, if you like.”

Loki smiled and shrugged.  “All right.  For tonight.  If we can call it night.”

They made their way to the adjoining room, which boasted a huge bed.  Surprisingly, the rest of the built-in furnishings were unremarkably utilitarian.  No bright splashes or color or weird decorations.  “Did _he_ sleep here.”

Loki’s expression turned into a moue of distaste.  “I hope not.  He used the _Commodore_ for parties.  This ship was just meant to bring him more stuff.”  Loki dialed the lights down to a low level and magicked himself into a soft shirt and breeches.  Thor stripped down to breeches and looked at Loki uncertainly.

Loki, just a trifle unsteadily, climbed into the tall bed and moved to the far side, leaving plenty of space for Thor.  Thor followed, rolling onto his side so he could face Loki. 

Loki’s eyes were half-closed but he did not object when Thor reached out across the distance between them to stroke his hair.  When Thor moved near and pressed his lips to Loki’s closed mouth, Loki’s lips curled into a smile but he did not open his mouth.  Thor didn’t press further, but pulled back and relaxed.  One of Loki’s arms crept around Thor’s waist.

Thor returned the gesture, and sleepily thought about how they had shared a bed as young children, cuddling together, talking about their dreams and plans.  Loki could always tell good stories.  He remember falling asleep to some of Loki’s tales, far more imaginative than the pretend battles Thor described.  Loki’s stories were full of quests, with dragons to fight and bewitched castles to invade and innocent people, sometimes transformed into statues or strange creatures, desperately in need of rescue.

The comforting images began to blank out.  Sleep was calling, but he managed to keep his eye open long enough to look at Loki just to remind himself he was still there.  Loki’s eyes had slid shut when Thor managed to say, “Thank you for coming back.”  His words were slurred and difficult to get past his lips.  He managed anyway, feeling an intense burst of emotion liberated by strong drink.   “Will you stay?”  The words slipped out before he could call them back.

Loki opened his eyes and gave him an exasperated look.  “I already said I’d stay tonight.”

Thor blinked.  How was it that Loki was more sober than he was?  He could have sworn they’d drunk the same amount – well, maybe not.  He was pretty sure he’d had all of one bottle to himself.  “I meant _stay._   Here.  On the ship.  With me.”

Loki sighed loudly.  “I can’t predict the future, brother.  I am – “

“- not a witch,” Thor finished, and for some reason found that hysterically funny.

Loki gusted out a long-suffering breath, pulled his arm out from under Thor’s heavy embrace, reached out and ruffled Thor’s short hair. 

Thor grimaced at the odd sensation.  His head, his entire body, felt suddenly very heavy, and suddenly grief overwhelmed him again.   “I made so many mistakes…” 

“You’re so drunk,” Loki commented.  “You wouldn’t be saying these things otherwise.”

“I didn’t treat you right,” Thor persisted, running one hand in circles on Loki’s back.

“No, you didn’t,” Loki said fondly.  “Oaf.”

“Mmmmmm….” Thor agreed, trying to keep his eye open.  The last thing Thor saw before his one eye slid shut was Loki, still watching him.  Then Thor was suddenly, deeply asleep.

 


	3. Chapter 3

The dead weight of one of Thor’s arms was lying on Loki’s shoulder, his brother’s hand limp against Loki’s back.  Thor had settled into a deep, inebriated sleep.  Despite all that Loki had had to drink – not nearly as much as Thor – he had been so thoroughly soaked in alcohol and other substances during his time on Sakaar that what he’d had just now wasn’t enough to thoroughly knock him out.  Just enough to leave him content to lie here, his mind quieter than it usually was. 

Though that never lasted.  His thoughts never stayed still for long, and ideas and questions quickly resurfaced.  _How_ had Thor convinced him to stay? 

_You thought you were so clever,_ he whispered to Thor.  But Thor _had_ been clever.  Manipulative.  A liar. 

Just like him.

He wasn’t sure if he liked that.  He’d hated Thor’s idiotic warrior mentality, his certainty he was always right.

But now that golden glow was tarnished.  Now Thor had learned to lie.

That could be interesting.

_Why_ had he returned?  Why _had_ he decided to stay?

On impulse Loki ran one hand along the Thor’s flank.  Some of his brother’s skin was smooth, some was marked with faint scars from the recent battle.  He let his hand settle against the warm skin and kept watching his brother’s face, his features slack with sleep. 

_You wanted me to be better – all that blather about growth and change.  That argument you used to persuade me?  Tricking and manipulating me with words.  Saying you’d given up on me._ That had hurt, he acknowledged.  Still did.

_And what happened?_

_I just had to prove you wrong._

He’d wanted to be better too, but out of all the things he’d ever achieved, that had not been one of them.  Not until now, anyway.  Images of the faces of his people as he’d emerged from the smoke, their rescue at hand, ran through his mind, and he relaxed, savoring the memory.

Loki.  A hero.  Truly deserving of statues and sagas and plays. 

He smiled with pleasure at the thought.

It was warm here in Thor’s embrace.  Safe.  He knew that was an illusion, but right now he didn’t care.  What lay outside the thin skin of this ship was hard vacuum and somewhere out there the worst possible of enemies.  But he wouldn’t think about that now.  Not with Thor’s head resting on a pillow, bare inches from Loki’s face, his familiar scent filling Loki’s nostrils.  Listening to the even sound of Thor’s breathing he was suddenly filled with sentiment.  He moved his hand in small circles on Thor’s side.  Maybe everything could be all right again.  Even –

His impulsive kiss –

His lips curled in remembrance.  Why, after all that had come between them, had he kissed Thor as he had?  He’d thought he’d thoroughly burned his desire for Thor out of his body and mind, along with so much else, after the fall and all that had occurred since.

Clearly he had not.  Desire stirred in him, the nearness of Thor, his scent, the feel of his skin - so provoking.

And what should he make of Thor’s response?  Thor had clearly wanted him, but Thor hadn’t pursued his desire even after all he’d had to drink.  Thor had never shown any hesitation in pursuing his desires in the past. 

How Thor had changed.

How they both had changed.

There were still so many barriers between them, so much pain, so much history.  Maybe a little bit was even his fault.  Did he want to tear those barriers down?  Burn them down?  Go back to who they were?  Become someone entirely new?

His mind began to calm again, and memories started drifting across its surface as he began to doze. The two of them, by a stream, some half-remembered idyll.  Vanaheim, perhaps.  After some battle.  During some hunt.  Dozens – hundreds of such expeditions.  They all blurred together.  It had been cool there, in the shade.  They’d been quite alone.  Thor had been importunate, but Loki had withheld himself until he’d driven his brother half-mad with lust.  That was always fun, even when he himself could hardly resist fulfilling his own need.

He let himself relax further, falling by degrees into half dreams where distant voices murmured unintelligible words, and then sleep.

And dreamed.

_Asgard in flames, its golden towers melting in rivers, metallic slag racing across the gardens and plazas, the dwellings and shops, burning all in its path, erupting into steam as it hit the water and slid down in sheets into the Void._

Loki woke, gasping, the last image in his mind the shattered boulders of what had been his home for a thousand years exploding into space.  He tried to rid his mind of the images, but the reality had been so much worse.  He’d seen everything from the _Commodore_ for one brief instant before the force of the explosion had sent the tiny ship hurtling blindly off into space. 

In the almost total darkness of the captain’s chamber he could see the dim outline of his brother’s body.  Thor was still lying on his side, snoring, his solid reassuring bulk like the outline of a minor mountain.  Loki could feel the warmth surrounding Thor’s body and almost reached out to caress, to embrace.

Loki swallowed.  His skin was icy and in the dim light looked almost blue.  Thor’s warmth was enticing, but he could not rid himself of the vision of Asgard’s destruction.  Could not rid himself of the memory that he had harbored Surtur’s dreams himself, not so very long ago.  In exile, in darkness, in prison, he had imagined it all in great detail: the destruction of Asgard.  Burn Asgard and all it contained to the ground.

And then his brother had asked him to fulfill his darkest fantasy.

Astonished, exhilarated, he’d done the deed.  And Asgard had burned.

Golden Asgard, unchanging, always the one way to do things, always the one way to think, always the one way to be.  Except for him. 

And yet, now that it was gone, the loss was near unbearable. 

In the _Commodore_ , watching the boulders hurtle by, and now, huddled in a tiny room in an alien spacecraft bound for nowhere, he wondered:  Why had he ever wanted this at all?  Any of this?  The years he had spent on Odin’s throne had softened him, he realized.  He’d enjoyed the trickery and the deception, but somehow the true responsibility for Asgard had seeped into his mind and his bones, and he’d realized that he had never fully closed his door on his childish imaginings of truly being King.  Truly being given the throne.  Truly being worthy of it.  All those years ago, when he had believed he had a chance to rule, he had imagined himself as a true and wise ruler, benevolent and kind to all save those who had ever slighted him.  They would be punished, and that, of course, was only justice, fulfilled at last.

Except he’d somehow never gotten around to punishing those who had incurred his wrath in the past.  There had been other, more important things to do.

He was still tired, but his mind was racing.  Sleep would be impossible.  Closing his eyes was inviting nightmare, and he had far too many of those crowding his mind, an endless parade he chose not to allow to assault him.  Not at this moment.  Every muscle felt tight with tension.

He rose stealthily, and spurred by restless energy, he slipped out of the bedroom, magicked himself into appropriate clothing, went outside and headed along the corridor to the right.  Every several feet there were doors and hatchways, most closed, some open.  He began to explore the rabbit warren of corridors that filled this part of the ship, needing to map this, to know this ship as thoroughly as he had ever known his own chambers.  He hadn’t had the time before; he took the time now.  It was always important to know as much as possible about his whereabouts, just in case he needed to leave on a second’s notice.

_…his own chambers… he would never see them again… his, Odin’s, both gone.  Like everything else in his life._

_Again._

His feelings were a tangled knot, impenetrable to his own understanding.  Thor wanted him – that was clear – and he wanted Thor.  But he wasn’t ready to take the next step.  Not until he decided - what _else_ he wanted from Thor?  He’d recognized, on the way to Asgard, how thoroughly Thor had played him, and he gave him grudging respect for that.  Still, he’d come to Asgard, anticipating his role as hero.  Anticipating Thor’s welcome – and Thor hadn’t disappointed.  But what next?

If he stayed here he’d need to make a decision.  Part of him yearned for what they’d had and lost centuries before.  They had both changed too much to return to who they had been before. How much would they both need to change to face these new challenges?

One thing he knew very well.  He’d adapt, whether he chose to stay, or wherever he chose to go.   What role should be play now?  He had been son and brother, second prince, monster and discarded trash, pawn and prisoner and hero, wise and benevolent king, plaything and savior, chameleon for every changing need.  What now?  He’d rewritten his own life when he outlived it.  “The Tragedye of Loki” had been an enormous success.  Everyone loved a good tale, as long as there was plenty of blood and emotional drama.

What now?  What did he want? 

He didn’t know what he wanted.   He itched to take some kind of action, any action.  He hated feeling confined, and being inside the metal shell of this ungainly ship was its own type of imprisonment.  He could just leave.  He had the tesseract safely hidden, along with other artifacts he had grabbed during his passage through the Vault.  He could take the _Commodore_ , safely parked on the hull of this ship, and leave, or if need be use the tesseract to travel very far away.

But where?

The thought gave him pause.  None of the Nine held any appeal, and the places he had been beyond held both untold riches and untold danger, warring empires and lawless realms and some few worlds that were, momentarily, at peace.   Perhaps he could find some safe and private place, where he could strengthen his own sorcery, recreate the safeguards he’d put in place on Asgard, in Odin’s guise. 

And yet hiding himself away did not appeal.  He felt a tie to Thor, to these people.  He had been their king.  He had ruled wisely, despite what Thor thought.  He had gotten them out of their entanglements with the rest of the Nine.  He had restored the damage done to Asgard by Malekith’s attack.  He had given them peace and amusements and plenty.  He had, in secret, began preparing for the war to come, a war that Odin, clearly, had been oblivious to.  The safeguards he’d put in place in Asgard were built on spells he’d used against Heimdall in previous years, made large to protect Asgard and its treasures from the Sight of anyone.  Particularly the One he feared the most.

_If his safeguards had been in place when Malekith attacked –_

He came to a dead halt.  Staggered by grief, he pressed one hand against the wall and tried to catch his breath. 

He’d had a statue erected to Frigga’s memory in her favorite garden.  He had –

He drew in a deep breath.  Another. 

_Stop remembering.  Just – stop –_

He straightened, started walking forward again.  He had to think of now.  He had to think of here. 

Now that Asgard was gone they were visible and vulnerable, and that could not stand.

His preparations had been all for naught, and that thought sent a frisson of terror through his body, triggering the urge to blindly run anywhere, rather than stay and feel trapped here.

“Your Highness!”  A young woman turned a corner and stopped suddenly at the sight of him, her cornflower-blue eyes wide and startled.  Before he had a chance to respond – he hadn’t even speculated on how the remaining Asgardians would react to his presence - she bowed and went to one knee.  She brushed a hand self-consciously through her gilt-gold hair.  It was disarranged out of the usual Asgardian style, the long strands tangled and snarled.  She looked no more than six centuries old, her young breasts still budding.  Her embroidered gold-brown gown was stained and torn at the hem. 

He gestured for her to stand, which she did.  He looked down into her upturned face.  She was at least two feet shorter than he was.  He recognized her as the daughter of the King's Armorer. “Gerta Svensdottir,” he acknowledged.

She essayed a subdued smile.  “You’re here!  They’ve been saying you didn’t make it – that you lost your life in heroic sacrifice to save us all.”

He wondered if they would have preferred that be the case.  He gave her his best endearing smile.  “I am a sorcerer, after all.”

“Yes.  Yes you are.”  Her eyes were still huge; her gaze swept him head to foot. 

“Where are –“ _your family? No, don’t say that_ – “you going?” _All alone?  No, don’t say that._

Tears welled in her eyes.  “I wanted to be alone.  Everyone is so sad.  Or angry.  Or tired.  I just needed to walk.  To get away.”  She looked around, looking even more young, more scared, and admitted, “I think I’m lost.”

“Were you in the main chamber?”

She nodded.  A tear slipped out from one eye.

He knew how to play this role.  He smiled and stood tall, every inch the benevolent king.  Perhaps, instead of everything else that had happened, he should have been an actor. 

“Let me take you back there.”

The girl had come quite a way, through many turns of the corridors.  They passed several people on the way, a couple of them his Councilors.  Odin’s Councilors.  Not that it mattered anymore.  He traded a broad smile for their surprised stares, but kept going without pausing to ask or answer questions.

He stopped, not needing to hear the sound of many voices speaking all at once to know they were near the hold.  For a moment he was tempted to stride inside and greet them all.  Would they welcome him as their savior or be angry at his deception?  None of the people he had encountered so far seemed disturbed by his presence. 

But a plan had begun to form in his mind.  Before he went inside the main chamber he had something he needed to do.  Someone he had to see. 

He looked down at Gerta.  “There,” he said, gesturing to yet one more branching corridor.  “Go this way, turn right, and you’ll be in the main hold.”

She was staring up at him most flatteringly.  “By your leave, Your Highness.  ‘The Tragedye of Loki’ always made me weep.  The way the All-father rescued you – your heroic sacrifice - ” She sniffled a bit.

“It was all true,” he said.  _Even the lies._   “Of, if not, the way it should have been.”  How he had scribbled the words, the way they had poured out on the page, seeing it all as clear as any of his illusions:  Odin, on Jotunheim, reaching out to rescue an abandoned babe, his heart already full of love for his new son.  The rewrite of history had been so easy.  No stolen relic, he.  No pawn he, to be used in some future political intrigue.  No, he’d been a wanted child.  A loved child.  A child the All-Father was proud of. 

He’d written those words as if they were a spell; an incantation powerful enough to change the past and so heal the present.  And yet, in the end, he could not deceive his own memory.

Sorrow suddenly overcame him at the thought of Frigga, of Odin, of Odin’s last words.  _My sons._   How he had longed to hear those words, see that look of pride and approval.  Why did it have to come so late?

Gerta was looking up at him with a kind of worship in her eyes.  She was just a child, but her awestruck regard made him feel better.  “You saved us all,” Gerta said, her voice a bit calmer, a bit steadier.  Then she suddenly giggled.  “Turning the Crown Prince into a frog.  My mother told me that story when I was just a little girl.”

_You’re barely past that now._ He couldn’t help smiling.  “Now that was _fun!”_ he confided.

Her face became troubled again and tears slipped down her face.  “What is to become of us?” she said in a broken whisper.

_What indeed?_

And none of them knew, save him, of the dangers that yet faced him.  Dangers he had planned for, prepared for – and all his preparations for naught, save for the few weapons still to his hand that he had saved from the Vault.

“We’ll make our own future,” he said, and that, at least for him, had never been a lie.  Trusting to himself to pull it off, ignoring the memory of all the times he had failed. 

She looked at him, an almost unbearable trust in her gaze.  He hadn’t expected that.  Everyone knew he was a liar.  And he’d been caught in the grandest lie of them all.  While still in Odin's guise, he’d thought that if ever his deception had been revealed, he would see anger and loathing on every face.  _She is a child_ , he reminded himself.  But none of the others they had passed had looked other than merely surprised.  And some of them had smiled at him.

She was still gazing at him, and ideas came to mind.  “There are old tales, of how we first created Asgard, told from the time of Bor’s grandfather,” he said.  She watched him intently, already enthralled.   How easily it was to slip into “we”, and when had that begun to become true?  “We escaped a dire fate.  We travelled far between the stars while our greatest sorcerers went to work.  We created a new home.  We can do so again.”

Her eyes filled with wonder chased by fear.  “I have never heard that tale.”

“I know it, and many more.”

“I would like to hear them,” she said, then blushed at her presumptuousness. 

“Maybe,” he said, becoming aware again of the din of voices nearby.  He gestured to the corridor, and did not ask who might be waiting for her, lest it bring memories of who would not be there. 

She nodded, gave him another look of hero-worship, half-backed away from him as was only proper, then finally turned and ran down the corridor, disappearing around the corner.

He retraced his steps and took another turn.  He was only partially familiar with the complicated layout from his brief hours on the ship after departing Sakaar, before arriving at Asgard.  He occasionally encountered others, sometimes small groups.  All of them looked surprised by his presence.  All of them bowed and moved aside respectfully, some going to one knee.  That pleased him immensely, and he offered them a nod and a smile as he passed by.

He didn’t engage in any more conversations, just kept exploring, working his way to a corridor along the outer hull until he found what he was looking for:  an outer chamber half-filled with observation equipment.  The far wall was all window, the infinity of stars lighting the darkness of space in full view. 

A dust cloud lingered, obscuring the view.  The dust of what had been his home and was no more.  Any remaining rubble had shot out into space, off on courses of its own, bearing the tale of Asgard’s doom to any who could read that message.

The dark silhouette of a man, his back to him, stood in front of that window.

He didn’t need the clue of the dreadlocked hair to tell him he had found the man he was looking for.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reference to the consequences of Odin’s use of dark energy to send Thor to Midgard is taken from “Marvel’s Thor: The Dark World Prelude” Volume 1.

Thor awoke and opened his eyes, already knowing he was alone.  Still, he got up, looked into the small bathing chamber, then in the other rooms.

Empty.

Loki was gone. 

He inhaled deeply, let out his breath.  He felt no surprise, but a mix of anger and disappointment threatened to capture his mind.  He shoved those feelings aside.

He paused by the table he and Loki had sat at the night before.  Empty liquor bottles littered the surface.  Two empty glasses, one tipped over, testified to Loki’s actual presence a few hours ago.

The bottle stopper – the one he’d thrown at Loki – was right in the middle of the mess.  He picked it up, clenched his fist so tightly its sharp edges cut into his hand.

He’d really believed Loki would stay…

He opened his hand, let go.  The bottle stopper, now spotted with drops of his blood, clinked as it hit the edge of the table, rolled off the edge, and fell to the floor.

He looked up, considering.  He realized he had already allowed himself to believe he would have Loki here with him, helping to save their people.  But that was not to be. 

He turned back to the bedroom.  He had no time to waste.  His people needed leadership.  He could not afford to spend time mourning the past, to grieve for all that was gone.

Back in the bedroom, he spared one glance to the rumpled bed, then dressed in the clothing he’d discarded the night before.  He returned to the main room and headed toward the door.  He’d take another turn around the ship, check in with the people in the engine room, make sure they had enough knowledge between all of them to guide this ship on whatever course he chose.  He needed to check on how the progress of the organization of the sleeping areas and eating areas was going.  He needed to discuss the supplies inventory.  There were hundreds of decisions that needed to be made near-simultaneously, and with the help of the remaining members of Odin’s Council, many had already been made.  But there was so much more left to do.

When he stepped out into the corridor outside the captain’s chambers he was surprised to find Reidar Eirikson and Stigandi Ulfson, two members of his father’s Council, approaching.  They were both dressed in their formal court clothing, clearly what they had been wearing when they had fled the palace.  They were accompanied by Agnar, a tall, dark-haired, heavily muscled man he recognized as a smith from the royal stables, and a shorter, blond man dressed in the clothing of a metalworker whose name he did not recall.

Eir was there as well.  She looked him over closely, her sharp eyes clearly appraising his state of health.  With her was a shorter woman, ordinary in appearance, who he did not recognize.  She was carrying a tray of food.    

Stigandi spoke. “We thought to bring you food and see what else was required.”

Thor gestured questioningly at the smith and the metalworker.  “The King needs his ceremonial guard,” Stigandi explained. 

Thor nodded.  The King always had at least two Einherjar outside his private quarters, a tradition going back to Buri’s time.  He and Loki, as well, had had their own guards, though as children they’d often evaded them any time Loki felt like it.

Thor thought to forgo the presence of the guard.  It seemed an insult to the people who remained to imply he needed protection on this enclosed, sealed ship.  How much tradition should he keep?  What should he discard?  _What would Loki say?_   Loki had often offered his counsel in the past – and now, when it was too late, he remembered the wisdom of many of Loki’s recommendations.  If only he had himself had the wisdom to recognize that no matter what Loki said, there were always multiple meanings.  He now knew only too well how easily Loki had played on his impulsiveness and berserkr rage to achieve his own goals.  His goals that had ended disastrously.  If only he’d understood Loki then as he did now…

But Loki had left.  Again.

He looked at the smith and the metalworker, fighting back another wave of grief at the thought of all those fine soldiers, all of the lost.  These men were no soldiers, yet here they were, ready to take on whatever duty he asked.

“Your name,” he asked of the metalworker.

“Solvi,” he replied, looking overawed by his presence.  Thor gave him a smile and a clap on the shoulder.  “I welcome your service.”  The man actually blushed.  


“And you?”  He turned to the shorter woman.

She bowed and said in a low, melodic voice, “Freydis, my King.”

He nodded.  “My thanks.” 

She dipped her head.  “Your Majesty.”  Her gaze remained lowered, and he noticed what he could see one of her hands where it gripped the tray had the remnants of a lengthy mostly-healed cut that extended beneath a sleeve and up one arm.

It looked to have been a glancing slice from a sword.  He said nothing.  She would not welcome it.  But it must have been a serious injury to still be this visible.

Reidar spoke.  “We also wish to ask if you needed Council.”

“I do,” he said, turning back into the chamber he had just vacated, gesturing for the Councilors and the women to follow him.

He noticed their glances at the table.  Still littered with the empty bottles and the two glasses, it told its own tale. 

“By your leave,” Eir said, stepping forward.  She didn’t bother waiting for his assent, and he was reminded of the many times he had been in her healing chamber as a child, as a young man.  Her expressions then had varied between serious concern and a frank look of exasperation.  He well remembered those expressions from previous occasions when he’d gotten injured from some ill-advised adventure of his or his brother’s making, or later, from righteous battle. 

Now, she looked haggard and worn, but her innate strength and faith in her own abilities still shone through.

She took off his eye patch and examined the socket.  He stood still, feeling the gentle aura of her healing magic surround him.  She remained in place for a moment, her eyes half-closed, and then touched four fingers of one hand to his brow, directly above his missing eye. He felt a gentle surge of magic as she drew her hand down, her fingers trailing against his eyebrow and then hovering briefly, without touching, over the empty socket.  She ended with a final, delicate touch to his cheekbone.  Her magical energy seemed to soak into his skin and spread throughout his entire body, gentle, healing. 

He drew in a deep breath, let it out.  The last traces of exhaustion were now gone.

She stepped back.

“Thank you,” he said, and he noted the surprised approval in her eyes.  “How go our people?” He gave a brief jerk of his head in Freydis’s direction, but didn’t break Eir’s gaze.  “I know some suffered grievous injuries.”  When Hela had him pinned on a balustrade on the palace balcony, he had seen many fall in the battle with Hela’s draugr.  His father’s words had changed his despair to fury, and channeling the force of the lighting in magnitudes more powerful than he’d ever used before, he’d blasted Hela and descended the air into the fray, determined that no more of his people would die.

“A few were beyond saving, but most are well now.  There are two dozens left who were among those most seriously injured, but they are recovering and each are attended by one of my vǫlur.  I do not believe any more will die.”  Her voice was calm, businesslike, but like them all the shock of what they had experienced broke through in small gestures, in the brief twisting of her hands before she crossed her arms and became entirely still.

“My thanks,” he said, then gestured for them to accompany him into an adjoining chamber, a small seating room attached to the main room on the opposite side of the bedroom.  It was less formal than the main room and the furnishings indicated it was meant for meals.  He invited everyone to sit on either side of a long rectangular table and they took their places, him at the head.  Freydis set the tray of food on the table and then, at a nod from Reidar, went out into the main room.  A moment later he heard the sound of the door closing behind her.

“What has been done since I took some rest?”

Reidar, his body stiff with tension, his craggy features marked with sorrow, began in a low, measured voice.  “The administrators you chose are dividing the freight bay into specific areas and assigning them to families and individuals.”  He stopped a moment, overcome by emotion of his own, caught himself, forced sorrow from his face and went on.  Thor did not ask who he had lost.  The man’s grief was only too apparent.  He would find out all the names of all the lost and speak with the survivors later.

Stigandi, his balding head gleaming pale beneath the overhead lighting, leaned forward.  His long black hair, clumped and filthy, straggled around his shoulders.  In quick, staccato tones, he detailed information about the inventories of supplies, water, food, fuel, and other items.  Most of the food supply consisted of the tasteless nutrition bars that was the sole source of nourishment for The Grandmaster’s slaves, but they had also found a fairly large amount of luxury foods, both familiar and exotic.  Some creatures destined for The Grandmaster’s table were still living, in stasis.  There seemed to be no end to the strange foods The Grandmaster enjoyed dining on.

“We also found several small holds filled with jewelry, perfumes, cosmetics, and fabrics, which might be of worth in trade,” Stigandi concluded.

“What of the people?  Do we have a count?”

“Yes, we have finished a census.”  Reidar gave Thor more information in quick and concise terms, nearly successfully concealing his pain. 

_So few,_ Thor thought, but did not say.  _Barely_ _half the population survived._

After he’d gotten all the information available on where they stood at this moment, he said, “I need to know what was happening in the realms so I can consider a possible destination.  When I returned to Asgard I saw chaos in the other Realms.   Marauders had returned to Vanaheim.  Alfheim appeared to be strengthening their fortifications – I saw many new magical satellites in place.  I had not the chance to visit any of the rest, but I suspect much the same was occurring elsewhere.  Had I not already suspected something was seriously wrong in Asgard, that would have raised dire suspicions.”

The group watched him in silence, waiting.

“Stigandi, did any suspect aught was wrong with my father?”

Stigandi cleared his throat.  “We knew he was not himself,” he replied cautiously.  “He had become so – I beg your pardon, my King.  May I speak frankly?”

“Please do.  Speak frankly and directly, and do not fear offending me with the truth.”

“He was very much changed after your return to Midgard.  We all remarked on the difference.”

Thor listened intently, prepared for any litany of horrors. 

“He ordered all repaired that had been destroyed by the Dark Elves.  That, of course, was only as expected.  But he began going out among the people again.  The AllFather had ceased doing so in recent years.  He was in mourning for the Queen – ” Thor felt his shoulders slump and sat upright again – “We all were.  For all those who died.  And yet, after your departure to Midgard, there was a difference in him that we all noticed and wondered about.  He seemed – much pleased about something, but we could not guess what.  But we were all in agreement – that whatever had troubled his mind before no longer seemed to hold sway upon him.”

Thor was becoming more confused by the moment.  “When you say ‘whatever had troubled his mind before’ - are you now speaking of my father?  Not my brother?” 

Stigandi still seemed reluctant to speak.  “Yes.”

Thor jolted in shock.  “In what way was my father’s mind troubled?”

“He was short tempered.  Quick to take offense.  Bloodthirsty when there was no need.  In Council, he no longer sought our advice, and when we offered it he brushed it away.  He was King, of course, and the King’s rule is absolute.  Yet in the past he always gave our advice good consideration.  No longer.  He ordered our warriors to attack potential enemies without ever attempting diplomacy.  That was never his way, before.”

Thor nodded, growing more disturbed with each word.  He knew that fact only too well.     _A wise king never seeks out war…_

Stigandi continued, “And yet that was not the worst.”

“Tell me – what was the worst.”  Thor’s voice had assumed its lowest register.

Stigandi temporized.  “For some time before the Dark Elves invaded the AllFather had become…”  He hesitated, seemingly unable to voice the words.

Eir spoke up in her direct way.  “Some thought that he was going mad.” 

“You need to explain that,” Thor said, his voice cold, still instinctively ready to defend his father from insult.

Stigandi broke in before she could reply, anxious to speak.  “Many of the palace guard told us tales, of him wandering the corridors, speaking as if another was present, though no one else was near.”

Thor’s skin went cold.  “What did he say?”

“Most of what he said they did not understand.  He spoke of his father Bor, and dimensions, and dreams.  None could make sense of it.  He also began speaking of one imprisoned – all who heard him assumed he spoke of your brother.  His ramblings did become worse after Prince Loki’s imprisonment – but they started before that happened.”

“The Queen sent for me,” Eir said, her voice now full of compassion.  “She feared he had been bespelled, though despite her own great powers, she could detect no outside influence upon him.  She asked for my help.  Yet it seemed to be for naught.  I, too, could not discover the presence of any outside force acting upon him.  You understand, of course, we had to cast our workings without his knowledge.  That was delicate work.”

_An understatement,_ Thor thought.  He suddenly remembered the conversation he had with Father before being sent to Midgard in search of Loki and the Tesseract.  His every muscle tensed, every nerve prickled with an intensity such as that which presaged battle, even though that battle was long behind him.   “Did his use of dark energy to transport me to Midgard take that toll on his mind?  He spoke of such to me before he transported me to Midgard, that his use of dark energy would not be without cost.”

“I thought not at the time,” Eir said consideringly.  “Do not think I neglected him after he chose to take that path.  The Queen and I both saw to his health, and between us we thought we had removed all stain from him.  But I think, now, there was much we did not, could not see.”

“What happened next?” Thor asked.

“After our workings revealed nothing, the Queen and I both agreed that, whatever this injury to his mind was, it was not something cast upon him, but something within him.  We could both feel the tracery of some vast and ancient working.  We could determine no more, and we both agreed that what we found was his power alone, that it belonged to the past, and we could not see how it held any concern at all to our present worries.” 

He looked around at the others and found then riveted on Eir’s words.   “When did this start?”

“Since your banishment and his Sleep.  Your mother and I thought he never fully recovered from the Sleep.  But when she urged him to consult with me, he refused.  Of course we could not gainsay him.”

“Since my banishment.” Thor tried to comprehend what that meant.  “Before… everything changed.  Before Loki – ”  He stopped a moment, unable to speak, seeing again Loki’s hand opening.  Seeing him fall.  “Before Malekith’s invasion.  Before… Mother’s death.”  An overwhelming surge of emotion threatened to overpower him.   His hands had formed into fists.  He drew in a deep breath and unclenched his hands.

“Yes, before.”  Eir’s voice was preternaturally calm, and he saw in her an understanding of what he was only now grasping.  “He had become changed long before Malekith’s invasion.  But then, of course, we thought it grief for Loki’s – for what happened to Loki.”

“Why did I not know any of this?” he demanded.

“Your pardon, but you were only here for a short time until the Bifrost was repaired, and then the Allfather sent you out to quell the marauders.  The King commanded and you obeyed.  And, the Queen determined to keep this matter to ourselves so as not to burden you”

“But if even the guards were whispering…”

“The matter is done,” she said.  “We cannot change it.  We can only move on.”  She hesitated a moment, staring into his eyes.  “I said the Queen and I had found some presence of an ancient working still marked in his seiðr, but that we had dismissed it as not relevant to what was happening to his mind.  I think I am beginning to understand that we were wrong, and that what happened in the past held sway in the present.   But I cannot tell you what that working was.”  Her gaze turned reflective.  “I think also, now, looking upon the past, that his use of dark energy – and not just to send you to Midgard – left a weakness in his mind.”

Thor stared at Eir for a moment, stunned by the realization that Odin had changed significantly even before Loki had ever seized the throne and exiled him to Midgard.  And that he had not known any of this 

For a moment he was back in the wrecked throne room, desperate to save Jane’s life, listening in dismay as his father made clear he was perfectly willing to sacrifice all of Asgard, down to their last drop of blood, rather than accept Thor’s proposal of an alternative plan to free Jane from the Aether.  A plan that had forced him to make the hard decision to disobey his father, to commit treason, to ask his friends to commit treason, for the sake of a greater good.  A plan that had in the end proved successful and saved all their lives.

_He also spoke of one imprisoned…_

He saw again that boiling darkness in that Midgardian land.  That other dimension.  That prisoner. 

_Hela._  

_How long had she been calling to Father?  How long had he been listening?_

He needed to tell Loki everything he’d learned of Hela – seek his sorcerous understanding of all of this –

It hit him anew:  Loki had left again. 

He had blamed his father’s intransigence on the exigencies of war.  Cold dismay shot through his soul as he realized how much had happened in his absence.  And he still needed to know of Loki’s actions, while his brother had sat upon the throne.  “Tell me more.”   


	5. Chapter 5

Loki knew Heimdall was well aware of his presence, though the other man, still standing before the transparent wall facing the stars, didn’t move, acting as if he took no notice of Loki at all. 

Less than a day ago, he had met this man on the Bifrost engaged in battle with Hela’s creatures.  Minutes ago, he’d stepped into this room, memories of the previous time he’d seen Heimdall flashing through his mind.  They had been on the Bifrost then, as well.   He’d used the Casket of Ancient Winters to freeze Heimdall where he stood, not caring if he lived or died.  His thoughts had only been on his goal:  Allow Laufey entrance – then murder him, and bask in Asgard’s acclaim and Odin’s approval.

It had seemed like a good plan at the time. 

That moment seemed centuries ago.  He had, quite possibly, not been thinking all too clearly at that time.  But now…  Everything had changed, changed again.  Allies could become enemies.  Enemies could become allies.

Heimdall didn’t move, even as Loki moved closer. 

After Loki’s capture on Midgard, Thor had used the Tesseract to take him directly to an empty cell in the dungeons where, still in chains, he’d been confined to a cell to await Odin’s judgment.  When he had returned from Svartalfheim and taken the throne Heimdall had already, by Odin’s order, been in the dungeons.  Loki had never visited him. Though he had been confident of his ability to maintain the charade by means of his concealment spell, he had not wanted to test it too closely by being in Heimdall’s actual presence.

So he hadn’t had the dubious pleasure of actually conversing with Heimdall until this moment.

“Watcher,” Loki said, taking another step forward.   “What see you?”

“Many things,” Heimdall’s voice rumbled.  And still he did not move.

Loki moved closer, slipping like a shadow in the darkness of the room until he stood directly behind the other man’s broad back.  Heimdall never changed his position.

How strange to see him as he was now, without his massive warrior’s helm, his dreadlocked hair now implying he was no more than any other ordinary citizen of Asgard.  That message was belied by the man’s current stance.  Still watching.  Still on guard.  Heimdall’s breathing was calm and steady.  Not the slightest twitch indicated he intended to take any further notice of Loki’s presence.  Loki moved again, pausing just behind Heimdall’s left shoulder. “You should thank me.”

Heimdall finally turned to face him, making no attempt to step back from his close presence.  “Loki,” he said, a disapproving weight to the single word that Loki chose to ignore.

“Never one for titles, were you?” Loki lifted his chin and gave him a smile entirely without warmth. 

Heimdall gave him an ironic look but made no attempt to add emphasis to any of his words.  “What should I call you then?”

Loki ignored the question in favor of following up with his earlier statement.  “You do know that Odin had condemned you to death for your treachery.” 

“I know.”  Heimdall’s solemn gaze betrayed nothing.

“Should I have let his decision stand?”  He held his gaze for several seconds.  Heimdall stared back, unblinking, silent.  “This was not the first time you committed treason.  You first merited death when you allowed the Warriors Three and Sif to go to Midgard against Odin’s express order.”

“I thank you for your mercy.” Heimdall’s voice was heavy with sarcasm.

Finally a reaction – an irritating one.  “You have a penchant for treason,” Loki observed, circling around him. 

Heimdall moved with him in order to continually face him, his uncanny golden eyes seeing, as always, far too much.  “I have a penchant for loyalty.”

“To whom?” Loki showed his teeth.

“To Asgard.”

“Asgard is gone.  I destroyed it.”  Loki stood still, waiting for judgment, for something to push back against.

“To Asgard’s people.”  Heimdall suddenly smiled, showing teeth as well.  “Perhaps you were not as eager for destruction as you claimed.  Else you would have let Odin’s command stand, and rid yourself of myself, Sif, Fandral, Volstagg, and Hogun, and none would have gainsaid you.  Why show us mercy?”

Loki gave a brief laugh.  “I fancied myself a just and merciful King.”

“You saved us.  You returned with this ship, you stood with us on the Bifrost.   If you are willing to go on fancying yourself just and merciful, and performing deeds to prove that, then you are of Asgard.” 

Loki noted he was not pledging any ‘loyalty’, but let that stand.  “When did you realize who I was?”

“When you exiled me.  I wondered at your decision to not bring me into your presence but did not guess the reason.   I might have Seen the truth of it, then.  When they came for me, I expected the executioner’s ax.  The All-Father had promised me my death.  He would not have changed his course – not as he was then.”  Heimdall suddenly shook his head.  “I could have denounced you.  You were not quite fast enough in casting your spell.  I had that one moment to see you clear and plain.  But I saw, also, you had spared the others.  The reason was clear:  They posed no danger to you.  They were dear companions to Thor and I think perhaps though you hated them you yet love him more.”

Loki huffed, anger flaring at the thought this man could read him so easily.  He had wondered at his own reasoning at the time.  He had, for so very long after their treason against him, desired their deaths, and yet when the moment came it had been far more satisfying to countermand Odin’s final command.  Thor’s friends were popular and the people were in mourning for all of their losses, for all who had died, for the damage to their city, for the realization that they were not the impregnable, undefeatable people they had always believed themselves to be.  Why kill some of their favored heroes when sparing them would bring him the people’s gratitude?  It was easy enough to give them this boon.  Sif and the Warriors Three had been fawningly grateful, and that in itself had been a pleasure.

“But why spare me?” Heimdall continued.  “Though you made me invisible, imperceptible to all eyes and ears, a ghost among the living, I could have found a way to bring you down.”

A smile touched Loki’s lips.  He was still pleased by the success of that spell, which had only broken when Thor forced him to drop his concealment and the shock had forced his grip on the spell on Heimdall to dissipate.  “Why did you not?” 

Now it was Heimdall who took a step to Loki’s side, forcing him to change position to keep in direct eye contact.  Beyond him, through the transparent wall, lay an infinity of stars.  Loki took one look, and felt his hands clenching tightly at the thought of what lay out there, and him – all of them – without the protections he had so carefully – fruitlessly – placed in Asgard’s defenses.   He looked away from the stars.  He focused on Heimdall’s golden eyes. 

“I thought of the King and all his deeds,” Heimdall replied.  “I turned my gaze – and saw the Allfather on Midgard, abandoned with the mortals, his mind caged by your spell.”

Loki’s lips twisted in a mockery of a smile.  “All the more reason, I would think, for you to, as you said, ‘find a way’ to denounce me.”

Heimdall gave a minute shake of his head.  “I thought of the King, and had how he had changed; how he seemed to care not for Asgard’s people, who had been his life’s breath and blood before.  I saw you at work restoring all that Malekith had destroyed and preparing fortifications against future attack. I saw you at work protecting what Odin, in his rage, would have sacrificed.  Mayhap for only your glory – but it was to the benefit of all.”

“An utterly wasted task, entirely gone now.”  Loki began to pace back and forth across the room, the darkness outside a mirror of his mind.

“Remember you now why I committed that second treason?”

Loki, pleased at his admission of committed treacheries, replied, “At my brother’s behest.”

“Of my own will.  Odin was betraying us all by choosing the most wasteful, bloodthirsty path he could conceive of.  He was willing to let us all die rather than admit he was wrong.  I knew Thor would save us.”

Loki huffed, “As he did.”

“Little did I ever guess you would also do the same.”

Loki paused his pacing to stare at him.  “I would have done more, had I known,” he said softly.  He found his hands forming fists again.  He relaxed them.  “Do you remember Hela?”

Heimdall’s face contorted.  “No.”  That one syllable carried towering rage. 

Loki began pacing again.  “How was such a great working done?  To alter the minds of so many?  She was before my time – not yours.”

“I cannot say.  You yourself know there are ways.  What arcane arts and artifacts Odin used, none now know.”  Heimdall’s face showed renewed suspicion.  “Why do you ask such things?”

“I wish to know what else we do **_not_** know.  Is Hela the only secret?  Or do other such revelations await?”

Heimdall clasped his hands, almost as if he were holding them over his great, now useless sword.  “I know not.  If any know and do not say, we count them as enemies as well.”

“…was he always thus?” Loki asked, half to himself.

Heimdall did not pretend to misunderstand.  “He was a great king.”

Loki made a choked-off sound, for an instant back on that Norwegian cliffside, watching his father dissolve into golden motes.  _But was he ever a good man?_  he wanted to say, but remained silent.  Because the hunger he’d felt all his life for approval, for proud words, had finally been acknowledged.  Something within him was now at peace.  Other parts raged, needed more, and now would never he satisfied.

“I Saw him at the last,” Heimdall said, as the silence drew on.  Loki’s gaze sharpened.  “What you did to him did not damage him.  I think, in fact, you gave him a kind of peace.”

“I did nothing save perhaps give him time to think.”  The sound of Odin’s voice, at the end; the expression on his face.  There were tears pricking at his eyes.  He blinked them back and forced himself to ask the questions he’d determined to ask.  “Does Sif yet live?  I have not had word of her in some time.” 

Heimdall’s eyes went blank for an instant, refocused again.  “She lives.”

A brief laugh broke from him.  “And here I did not think I was doing her any favor, sending her out on endless quests.  You should tell Thor.”

“Or you should.”  When Loki didn’t respond, Heimdall spoke again.  “I remember, when you were a boy, how you used to come and visit me, and ask me about tales of all the realms and all that lies beyond.  We spent so much time together.  You desired to learn everything.  You had so many questions.”

Loki let a small, bitter smile touch his lips, remembering for an instant how much he had loved Heimdall’s tales.  How young he had been.  “I have since learned all too much about what lies beyond the Nine.”  Tension seized him again, and he gestured to the transparent wall.  “What see you?”

“Where should I look?”

Loki hesitated.  Perhaps it was best not to ask. 

Heimdall gave him a perceptive look.  “You fear.”

Loki’s fingers curled, already summoning power, ready to blast Heimdall for his effrontery, for seeing what Loki preferred to conceal, for saying aloud what he preferred not to hear.  Heimdall didn’t not flinch, did not change expression.  Loki relaxed his hands and gave a harsh laugh.  “As should you.  Some things are better left unnoticed.  Some things, when looked at, look back, and the consequences may mean the doom of all of us who remain.”

Heimdall remained silent for a time.  Loki looked out into the depths of space, grateful that from this viewpoint the area of space where Sanctuary and Thanos lay could not be seen.

But what if he had left his dark haven?  He would not have given up his obsessive quest for the Infinity Stones.  He would not –

He acted without thinking.  He raised his hands and created an image of a star chart on the air.  He indicated one sector, enlarged it.  “Look there.”

Heimdall was silent a moment.  When he answered, there was a new harshness in his voice.  “That place is abandoned.”

Loki interlaced his fingers, squeezed tight.  “What else see you?”

“Dangers.”  Heimdall’s voice had lowered, darkened.  His golden eyes shone in the dim light, unseeing to all else but what only he could See.

“How close?” Loki’s voice was now a bare whisper.  His skin crawled and terror threatened to overwhelm his mind.  He had spent many long sleepless nights pondering that very question.  Without the Tesseract, Thanos would need to rely on ships or known portals.  But there were many ways to travel between the Realms.  What had Thanos done since Loki had failed him on Midgard?

Heimdall frowned.  Loki watched in dismay as Heimdall squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again.  Heimdall shook his head for one moment, and for that instant it seemed as if he had gone blind.  “Far away.  Coming closer.”  Heimdall’s voice was as low as his.

“Can you see more?”

“No.”  He shook his head in emphasis, then met Loki’s gaze.  “What I saw was not clear.   It’s gone now.  Hidden from me.”

Loki swallowed, his skin feeling as cold as Jotunn ice.  When he spoke again, his voice was a bare whisper.  “You, who can see everything – well, almost everything,” he amended when Heimdall’s eyes narrowed, the other man clearly remembering all the times Loki had evaded his Sight.  “I had believed – ” and all the agony and rage and desperation he had felt because of that belief seized his mind for just a moment – “until Mother told me different that you had Seen where I fell.  And said nothing.”

“They asked.  If I had Seen you, I would have told them.”  Heimdall’s voice held no regret or comfort. 

Loki stared silently into space, absorbing that information, remembering how he had felt when he finally acknowledged the truth of what Frigga had told him.  All the horror of those memories remained with him, but the realization they had all truly thought him dead, that they had not deliberately abandoned him to that fate, had lifted some of the burden weighing down his soul.

Heimdall stood motionless and silent beside him while he thought.  There were so many ways concealment spells could be made.  It was harder to unmake them, but he had that knowledge, as well.  He had taken many items of Power from the Vault.  With them, and with time to practice their workings, he could conceal – or reveal.

“If Asgard is to survive,” Loki said at last, struggling to keep his voice steady, “we must find a way to see without being seen.  We must find a place and choose a way to make our stand.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started writing this story a few weeks before “Infinity War” was released. At that time I knew exactly where the story was going, with my projected ending entirely dependent on the IW plot. Now, my story is going in the same direction as before – but it looks like it’s going to be quite a bit longer. A fixit of this magnitude is going to require a lot more words.

“And what of Loki?”  Thor looked at Eir and the two Council members, each in turn.  Memories flooded in, of all the hours and days he had spent in Father’s Council chamber, time that had seemed endless back when he would far rather have been out in the sparring yards than listening to boring matters of State.  Loki, of course, enjoyed every minute he was there, and once he was allowed to speak had often made comments that Thor had paid no attention to at that time.

How he wished he had listened more closely, back then.  To Loki.  To all of them.

He could still see them as they had been all those centuries ago:  The chamber, with its long marble table, Father at the head, seated in his elaborately carved chair.  Father presiding, regal and powerful and strong.  Stigandi and Reider and the other Councilors, Eir, if present, all hale and strong, all dressed in their court clothing, their expressions thoughtful, animated, or grave, depending on what was being discussed.

Now, sitting on either side of a small table barely big enough for them in this tiny metal-walled room aboard this spaceship, his Councilors and Eir all looked haggard and worn with exhaustion and grief.  Stigandi’s bald pate shone under the harsh ceiling light, his fringe of long black hair seeming even more tangled and matted with dirt under the light’s glare.  The rips in Reider’s clothing were even more noticeable.  Thor now also could see that there was blood on Eir’s clothing that she hadn’t wasted energy magicking away.

When they seemed hesitant to answer his question, Thor added, “What did my brother do while he sat on the throne in my father’s guise? Besides lounging on couches eating grapes?” Thor asked, still nettled at the memory, still grieved that once again Loki had chosen to leave him.  “It seemed to me he was taking his duties quite casually.”

“He did bring levity back into the land after our period of mourning was over,” Stigandi said diffidently.  “So many suffered from the Svartalf attack.  He erected a great monument to the Queen.”

Thor tensed at the reminder of this agonizing loss.

“He ordered fairs and festivities and all kinds of amusements, and people’s hearts were lightened,” Stigandi continued.

“And plays,” Thor commented sourly.  “Was his rule nothing but frivolities?”

“Were the things he said in the play – not true?”  Reider asked Thor.

“Not entirely untrue,” Thor admitted.  “Just… a bit too much.  He did not say near as much to me as he lay dying in my arms.” He swallowed, remembering the anger he had felt at this deception. ”Remember, I came in at the end of the play.  But the last of it – ” – _I didn’t do it for him –_ “yes, that was true.  But what of Loki’s rule?  I have been gone from here for many seasons – “ He barely paused speaking despite a sharp stab of guilt at his neglect; his visions of a ruined Asgard taking him entirely astray, leading him all around the Nine and beyond, instead of where he should have gone in the first place.  Home.   “ – And there is much I must know.  Aside from his ‘levities’, did Loki do aught else for Asgard?  I did notice, upon my arrival, that all was repaired with no trace of damage, as if nothing had ever touched our fair city.”

“He set all the builders and artisans working to restore Asgard.” Stigandi wiped at a tear just below one of his eyes.  He straightened his spine and set his expression back to one of courtly formality.

“All was done quickly and precisely,” Reider added.

“All I learned elsewhere indicated he had withdrawn Asgard entirely from the affairs of the Nine.”  Thor looked from one face to another.

“He recalled our warriors home from conflicts on the Nine but conferred much in private with their officials.  He worked a treaty with Jotunheim and sent an official party there,” Reider said.

Thor contemplated that revelation.  Jotunheim.  The place of his most catastrophic folly.  Hot shame still filled him whenever he thought of his actions there.  He forced those thoughts aside.  He had to keep moving forward.  “What was decided?”

“It was all kept secret.” Reider shifted uncomfortably, clearly not happy to impart this news.

“Just with the Jotnar?  What of the other Realms?  Do you have any knowledge of what he spoke about with their officials?”

Reider had returned to a formal posture.  “None, my King.”

_How had Loki managed his deception for so long?  Appearance was one thing, yes, but how did he manage to keep his secret among those who would have known Father best?_  “Were there not oddnesses about him that made you question?”

 “There were things he did not know that he should have known,” Stigandi admitted.  “But we talked among ourselves and decided…” he groped for the correct words.

“That his mind was addled and he had become forgetful,” Eir put in, cutting through the evasive court language like a sword through butter.

Stigandi gave her a sideways, half-scandalized look before focusing on Thor again.  “We all noticed that he had changed.  Of course now we know the answer to that.  But the change was for the better.  In all ways it was if the past few years before Malekith’s attack had not happened.  He was consulting us again, which greatly relieved our minds.  He strengthened our fortifications.”

“In what way?” Thor asked, trying to follow the convoluted paths of Loki’s mind and actions.

“He spent much time with the shield equipment and the deep fortifications,” Stigandi explained.  Reider, beside him, nodded in agreement.  “He was using his own magic.  We saw him do things with Gungnir that only the oldest among us remembered Odin ever doing before, and that was millennia ago.  For some of what he did, in the deepest chambers of the palace, none but guards accompanied him, and, I have been told, were left outside the chambers he entered.”

Thor paused to consider, trying to fit the image of Loki disguised as his father, working directly with the physical structure of Asgard.  “Since you were all gossiping,” he said – both Stigandi and Reider winced, while Eir just raised one eyebrow – “what did you think he was doing?”

“We understood he was working for the safety of all of Asgard,” Eir said, her voice clear, strong, and entirely without the deference of the others.  “He consulted with my staff on upgrades to the magical fortifications.  He reinforced the force fields that had shielded the palace, and added others.  He shielded the controls in a way that only certain members of the Council and the Vǫlur, acting in concert with a minimum of three required, would be able to access the workings.”

“Some of the most crucial shielding would only obey to his touch, but none other,” Reider added. 

Flashes from the vision he had had while still on Midgard sent a chill along Thor’s skin.  He resisted the urge to look around, but the ominous sense of an enemy approaching was difficult to ignore.  “What did he say to you, about his doings?  Did he ever say if he thought there was a particular threat?”

“He said naught to us of his purpose, just that we must always be prepared.  If he had any reasons for these actions other than protecting Asgard to the best of his abilities, none of us could guess.”  Stigandi’s gaze grew even more troubled.  “His choices seemed wise – certainly the foul beast Malekith proved how vulnerable we truly were.”  Stigandi swallowed, his expression darkening, the recent past showing like scars in his expression.  “We could not question any of his actions, of course, but we did wonder at his first requests, as some made no sense at the time.  We wondered if this was another sign of the King’s, er, confusion.  But he seemed purposeful, intent, and as the work continued we could see how his first actions would bear fruit to safeguard Asgard.”

“He was obsessed.  Driven,” Eir stated flatly.  Thor could see not-quite-hidden impatience in her expression.  She clearly had things to do elsewhere, with those of the injured who were still under her personal care. 

He understood her attitude completely.  He could feel the prickle of electricity along his skin, the need to be _doing_ , not sitting and talking.  And yet he now understood the value of knowing everything, the importance of learning all that was necessary before taking action. 

Stigandi began speaking again, and Thor focused entirely on him and his words. 

“As were we all,” Stigandi said.  “Asgard – invaded – as if our shields and defenses were nothing.”  _Are nothing.  Are gone,_ hung in the air.“We all wanted to do our best, to work our hardest, to follow the King’s every command.  To keep us safe.  The warriors trained every day.”  The room went silent again as each thought again of the magnitude of that loss.  _All their finest, gone.  “_ We were all grateful that he had the good of the people at the foremost of his mind again.”

“Were the people pleased with these changes?  This inward turn, away from war, away from the other Realms?”  The idea that Asgard’s people would welcome this turn of policy surprised him, and yet now he understood more clearly Father’s wisdom in avoiding unnecessary war.

“The young seek war.  The old count costs,” Eir stated flatly.

Thor knew she understood the truth of that, as much as all the warriors, for she had seen so many injured and dead over the millennia. 

Eir went on, “As for the pleasure of the people - he presented one face to the public, and another in private.  Is it not thus for many?” Eir gestured widely.  “To the people, the man we thought our true King was benevolent and they respected the time he was in mourning.  They were grateful at the swiftness of the rebuild of the city, and, later, for the entertainments he provided to lighten their souls.  In private, we all remarked on how he worked for many hours without rest, all seemingly designed to keep Asgard safe from any who might attack us again.”

Thor digested this for a moment.  “Do any of you remember Hela?”

All of them tensed, as if she were suddenly present in the room with them.  Then, almost in chorus, they said, “No.”

Stigandi suddenly burst out, “Your father.  King Odin.  To learn, as we all did, that he stole our memories from us…”  The last words were filled with loathing, and Thor then truly understood how far Odin had fallen in the eyes of his people.  Stigandi suddenly looked stricken. “Your pardon, my King.”

Thor waved it off.  “How did he make that happen?” Thor mused.  “Eir?”

She shook her head.  “It is a working beyond my knowledge.  But whatever that working he did, all those ages ago, it was powerful and marked his seiðr forever.  I believe there you have the root of everything that followed.”

“Can you find out?  Can you scry the past?”

She hesitated, “Is it necessary?  Scrying into the distant past takes much magical energy and I would be forced to take my attention away from those who need me now.”

“It may be.”  He did not understand the tension gripping him, but he was not going to ignore this sense of danger.  But this time, he didn’t intend to rush into matters heedlessly.  He needed more information.

“Is there aught else you can recall that seemed odd or strange?”  Thor looked at everyone around the table.

“Other than he continually sent the Lady Sif out on one quest after another, no,” Reider replied, and the others nodded.

 “Sif.”  He felt a coldness in the pit of his stomach.  “Did she die, along with the other warriors?”

“No, my King,” Reider said.

“Where is she now?”  His voice had gotten louder.

“The King – your brother – sent her to Nornheim.  She was to obtain some magical object from the Norn Queen.  She had not yet returned when… Hela arrived.”

That was another surprise.  The relationships with Nornheim, while often tense, had warmed in recent decades; however Karnilla always kept her sorcerous objects close to her own hand.  “Do you know what that was?”

“No, I do not.  Have you asked Prince Loki?”

Thor looked at him in astonishment.  “I don’t know where he is.”

Reider said, “Didn’t he just come from your chambers?  We saw him in the hallway, talking to Sven’s daughter.”

Thor, astonished, couldn’t speak for a few brief seconds. 

“If you please,” Eir put in, finally remembering propriety, “Ask him what he knows about that working.  You are right; we truly need to understand how your father stole our memories of Hela.”

The beginnings of a smile had touched Thor’s lips.  _He didn’t leave after all.  He would not have shown himself to others if that had truly been his intention._ “Where is he now?”

“He may have been heading toward the main chamber,” Stigandi said.  “He was facing that direction.”

Thor was instantly on his feet.  “I will seek his counsel now.  We will convene again later.”  He was out the door a second later, ignoring the startled looks directed his way.

*****

_What to do next?_   Plans, and permutations of plans, raced through Loki’s mind.  _So many possibilities.  So much to do, to protect himself.  Protect Thor.  Protect all of them._

Still thinking of his conversation with Heimdall, muscles tight with tension and skin crawling with terror, he turned his steps toward the main hold.

He felt as vulnerable now as a chick just out of its shell.  Behind Asgard’s fortifications, he had felt he could breathe again.  Could relax.  Could think and plan without the dread weight of the knowledge of Thanos’s threatened retribution tainting every minute of his days.

But now that fear was back full force.  Fortifications weren’t enough.  Defense was not enough.  They needed more than protection.  They needed a weapon or weapons powerful enough to defeat the Titan.  And they needed them soon.

He had many objects of power hidden away, those he had taken from the Vault, and other, smaller things, he had hidden away throughout the centuries, items useful for his own protection, back when he had thought only of his own life.  Now…

Now, he would need the aid of others.

He needed to know, now, where he stood with Asgard’s people.  As their traitor prince?  Or as the King who had restored Asgard?  Now that Asgard was gone, which would he be in their eyes?

The voices from the hold grew louder every second as he approached.  He put a confident smile on his face.  He didn’t hesitate as he reached the doorway to the hold.  He walked inside.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I want to give double thanks to my betas, Tenaya and Muriel_Perun, for helping me make sense out of this chapter while I was recovering from the shock of seeing "Infinity War". Even though I guessed ahead of time what they were going to do - and started writing this story as a "fix-it in advance"- I was not in the least bit prepared to actually see it.
> 
> In the comic books it's canon that Volstagg and his wife had a LOT of children.

Loki magicked his formal court clothing back into being as he entered the vast hold.  He kept his face a regal mask, his expression not betraying the slightest trace of the terror that had seized his mind only moments before, when he had stood with Heimdall staring into infinite space, knowing what lay out there.  And what was approaching.

He needed to take action.  But he needed to know something first:  would the people be with him?

The noise of a thousand and more voices echoed within the room’s confines.  Several people who were approaching the door stopped conversing the instant they recognized him.   Loki met their startled gazes with a nod, then took a comprehensive look at the huge room.  There was open space close to the rear wall, but several steps away people were seated or lying on bedding made of garish Sakaaran cloth, clearly taken from the smaller cargo holds.  Some were sleeping, some conversing, others simply leaning against each other, their expressions still blank with shock.

When the people closest to him went silent, more people turned to see what was going on, and suddenly those lying down or sitting rose to their feet.  He glanced from one surprised face to another.

Would they accept him as who he was?  **_What_** he was?  Sven’s daughter - who must now be somewhere inside this room - certainly had, but she was a child.  What of her elders?  Would they see the Prince who had rescued them? The trickster they had known before?  The enemy Jotunn beneath?  How many would forget their enjoyment of “The Tragedy of Loki of Asgard” and remember their childhood nightmares?  He had never forgotten his own nightmares: the creep of frost across doors and walls, metal and stone shattering, a towering blue horde invading, leaving frozen Asgardian bodies littered on every floor.

How long had it been since he had walked among this many of Asgard’s citizens as himself and not in Odin’s guise?

The answer was instantly there:  Walking by Mother’s side along the main aisle in Asgard’s throne room for Thor’s coronation.

Scant years ago.  A lifetime ago.   Back when he had been discontented with his place in Asgard, but had never questioned who he was.  He’d been greedy for more – not realizing how much he could lose. 

Now he knew – and he knew how much they could **_all_** lose.  So many sleepless nights, so many too-short days when, beneath his glamour as Odin, all of his magickal and physical energy had been focused on strengthening Asgard’s fortifications.  He had worked long and hard to protect Asgard and its people – all of that effort now come to naught.

Except he still had weapons.  He still had plans.  And if the people would accept him for who he really was, he might still be able to pull this off.  A chill ran across his skin as he remembered Heimdall’s words.  **_Danger… Coming closer._**

He headed to the central aisle that led all the way to the front of the hold, planning, thinking, observing.  More faces turned toward him and while he didn’t pause he slowed his steps to look at individual faces.  He needed to know who had survived. 

More and more people began turning in his direction as he strode along the central aisle.  As he swept through the room, the people ahead of him turned in a wave of motion and they, too, stopped talking.  The silence deepened with every step he took, and on most faces surprise quickly turned to relief and to hope.  Part of him responded like a flower opening to the sun.  Part of him remained cramped and withheld: a ravenous wyrm, pausing in its devouring, yet still watchful for its chance to seize his mind again.  He made careful note of other faces:  some skeptical, others cautious and reserved, their arms folded, their judgment still withheld.  A few kept their expressions blank.  Was that hostility lurking in the back of their eyes?

He recognized everyone, their names springing instantly to mind.  There, the bookbinder.  There, the silversmith’s youngest son.  There, several cooks from the palace kitchens.  There, the orchard mistress and her husband.

As a child and as a young man, he’d had so much fun going among them incognito, secure in the cleverness of his disguises – cats and snakes and sometimes as invisible as the air itself – enjoying his ability to see and hear for himself what the people really said and did when not in the presence of royalty.

That familiarity with the populace had only increased in the years he spent in Odin’s guise, going among the people, being present at their entertainments and festivals, speaking to the crowds.

How he had loved those moments!  At the first, when he’d bespelled and exiled Odin and taken his form, he’d walked along the sharp edge of potential discovery, as much exhilarated by the challenge as terrified by the consequences of unmasking. 

It hadn’t taken long, however, before he’d grown comfortable in his role as the AllFather, secure in the knowledge that his face was protected from their sight by a spell as powerful as the spell Odin originally cast upon him to disguise his true heritage.  He’d reveled in the enjoyment of a trick well-played.  The discovery that Odin’s behavior had become erratic in recent years had given him the freedom to do _anything,_ knowing that any oddness in what he said or did would be attributed to Odin’s increasing eccentricity. 

Toward the center of the room metal crates served as makeshift tables.  People were seated crosslegged at these tables, eating and drinking.   People paused as they recognized him, and he was gratified as they stood from their meals and bowed.

It was happening all around him now.  People bowed to him as he passed, looks of gratitude crossing their faces.  His smile broadened as he made eye contact with some of those who seemed genuinely glad that he was there.  Many dropped to one knee as he passed and his heart began racing, his skin tingling with the pleasure of their regard, as intoxicating as the finest of Alfheimr wines. 

He was halfway through the chamber now, and everyone was standing as he approached.  There were still some who stood silent and grim.  There, the servant who had laughed at Thor’s mockery of him prior to Thor’s aborted coronation.  Loki smirked, remembering his illusioned serpents and the way the man had dropped the serving dish.  The man quickly looked away.

Now he stopped before a group of women, once wives of warriors, now widows due to Hela’s slaughter of their men.  They were surrounded by children from babes in arms to adolescents.  They stood there straight and proud, unshed tears in their eyes.

_All of the warriors,_ he thought.  _Living in the hopes of glorious battle.  Dying like butchered animals._ And though he had never received much respect from the warriors, as Odin he had grown to appreciate their military might.  The loss Asgard had taken at Hela’s hands was incalculable.

Loki made a gesture that included them all and found himself saying the conventional words while truly feeling their meaning: “Your husbands have taken their place in the halls of Valhalla, where the brave shall live forever.”  They each murmured words of gratitude.    

Further along, he saw Ragnhild, the elderly royal wardrobe mistress, surrounded by some of her grown children.  She had been old when Loki was young. 

All of them had attended upon him in the palace.  Ragnhild had often brought him new fabrics and had shown him holographic models of formal clothing that Mother had deemed acceptable for court events such as ambassadorial balls and the weddings of high nobility.  He remembered how often those grandchildren had been underfoot, because of his choice to have them present.  He’d never forgotten his place, and they had never forgotten theirs, but they had brought fun and entertainment to his childhood in a way none of Thor’s noble friends had done.

As he looked from face to face, something became horribly clear.  Two of her grandsons were not there. 

Both of them had grown up and become warriors. 

Both dead at Hela’s hands.

Loki paused before her and took her hands.  “Ragnhild,” he said softly.  “It is good to see you.”  She met his gaze for a moment, then got down to one knee.  He gently lifted her back to her feet.  She held herself as erect as a pillar, but her face was ravaged with sorrow.  “Their stories shall live forever.”  She nodded and tried to respond, but couldn’t manage one word.

He squeezed her hands, then continued his walk, heading further into the chamber.  People pressed in on every side, the chamber more crowded the closer he got to the front. 

He looked from side to side as he passed.  He knew them all, remembering who had despised him, who had been more at ease in his company, who he had never spoken to, yet recognized all the same.  Some of them – most of the younger ones, and most contemporaries with him and Thor, were smiling, wide-eyed with awe. 

He felt like raising his arms to them, just as he had on his arrival on Asgard, but decided a regal look was more appropriate.  Their approval was like rain on parched ground, the part of him that was never satisfied greedily drinking in every drop.  He deserved their accolades – he had saved them from death at Hela’s hands by bringing the ship that had rescued them from the destruction of their world – but inside he truly hadn’t expected such a hero’s welcome.

Now, it was clear many of them had forgotten – or did not care about – the misdeeds of his past.  Now, all that was important was that he had returned for them.

Not all the survivors were here.  After leaving Thor’s rooms on his way to find Heimdall he had seen people in the corridors leading elsewhere on the ship:  the smaller holds and crew chambers, the engine room, and the command and communications center.  He’d guessed many of them were fulfilling tasks ordered by Thor and his Counselors.  This room was not large enough to hold them all, but it was clear that most of the Asgardian survivors had chosen to remain here.  He saw no sign of Korg and the gladiators, or the green beast, or Scrapper 142, and assumed they had sought shelter in other parts of the ship.

The sensation of the crowd around him, of the gratitude he felt from so many, took him instantly back to the fantasy he had created and recreated so many times to obliterate the reality of being in that cell in Odin’s dungeon.

Him, sweeping along the length of Asgard’s throne room, ascending the stairs, and turning to face the crowd, intoxicated by their applause.  Him, magnificent in the royal red cape and wide furred collar, standing before all of Asgard, and those from other Realms sent to witness the historical occasion of his coronation.  Best of all, the ecstatic cheers as he called Mjolnir to his hand.  Worthy, before them all, at last!  He had wanted it – oh how he had wanted it! 

He had immersed himself in that fantasy more fully each time he had indulged in it, and it had become more and more difficult to go back to his fate:  a lifetime ahead of him in that tiny cell, the tedium only broken by his mother’s gifts, her insubstantial presence the only thing holding him to unwanted reality.

Frigga had forced him to remember what was real, had forced him back from the brink of eternal delusion.  He’d resented her for it, hated the forceful pull back into the reality of where he was. 

After her death, regret over how he had thrown her words back in her face had gripped him like the strongest chains.  But then, and now, he remembered her long and patient love.  She’d saved his sanity, and so his life.  He’d raised a statue to her memory; he had worked hard to protect himself, and Asgard, from Thanos, because he knew she would have wanted it.   And he knew what she would want him to do now. 

He’d wanted the throne.  And he’d had it.  And now he understood only too well what that entailed.

He was nearly to the end of the room.  Ahead a lone blue chair awaited, its back to the room.  The wide window showed what lay behind this ship’s metal skin:  the remnants of the dustcloud that had been Asgard and, behind it, stars shining dimly through the haze. 

He slowed as he neared the front of the vast chamber, looking to one side when he felt someone tug on his surcoat.  A familiar child’s voice said, “Please, Prince Loki!” 

He turned – and found himself looking down at Volstagg’s youngest daughter Flosi.  She was barely half his size.  He looked over her head to the crowd of familiar children behind her.  Hildy, the eldest daughter, was dressed as always in boy’s clothing.  Alaric and Rolfe and Gudrun were there, as well as nearly a dozen more.  There had never been any point to trying to keep count of Volstagg’s children; he and his wife kept having more and they kept taking in orphans. 

He swallowed when another thing became clear:  their mother was not present.  Nor had he seen her elsewhere in the ship.  There was still the possibility she was somewhere he had not yet visited – but he could see by their faces that that was a vain hope.  He’d already heard what had happened to Volstagg and Thor’s other friends.  These children were doubly orphaned.

Flosi, who wasn’t more than three centuries old, was gazing up at him.  He knelt down to face her on her level.  “What I can do for you?” he asked, his voice now the only sound in the vast hall.

“What happened to our home?”  It was an anguished cry.  “Who was that hag?  Why did she hate us so?”  She reached out her tiny hands, and he took them in his own.

“Ah.”  Of course, no one here had any true grasp of what had happened, save Thor and himself.  He looked at Hildy. “Did Heimdall not explain?”

“He said very little,” Hildy said, her voice unsteady despite her clear effort to sound calm.  “He was out all the time, finding others.”

Flosi was still staring at him beseechingly out of tear-filled bright blue eyes.  Eyes that begged for comfort, reassurance, hope.   

His silvertongued talent for words had always served him well.  But now he found himself speechless because of the gaze of a child.  How could he offer hope to a child who had lost so much while they were in even greater danger than they had faced before?

“I will explain everything to everyone,” he said in a low voice.  He let go of her hands and stood, but it took another moment before he looked away and walked the remaining steps to the end of the room. 

One glance through the window was enough:  The dust-filled starfield, the remnants of the realm he had wanted so much, had twice ruled, had loathed in his imprisonment, had destroyed at Thor’s bidding.

Shaken at the sight of all that was left of his home, he turned back to face the room.  All eyes were focused on him.  He amplified his voice via sorcery.  “Odin had many secrets and kept them from us.  Secrets that came close to destroying us all.” 

There were rustlings and murmurs.  He paused, studying their grief-stricken faces.  Everyone stared back, hungry for his words, desperate to understand how their lives had been destroyed.  Their faces showed all the shades of horror and sorrow and an overwhelming grief.  It was clear the extent of the loss they faced was yet barely conceivable to most of them.  They were Asgardians, changeless, nearly eternal.  All other realms had envied or feared them.  And yet here they were, barely more than two thirds of those who had lived but days prior, many of their men dead, themselves homeless, all they had ever known destroyed.

He had seen a similar look in their faces before, after the consequences of Malekith’s attack had become fully apparent.  Loki had gone out among them, in Odin’s guise, to offer them comfort, to share their sorrows:  The loss of so many lives.  Their grief that matched his own:  The Queen’s death. 

They’d looked to him for guidance and leadership then, not knowing who was truly among them, but whatever satisfaction he had felt at that time had been near a dead-thing, for he, too, had had to face, finally and fully - Mother’s death.

This new grief over the loss of his home opened inside him like a chasm, adding to the burden of everything he had lost before, and for an instant he felt himself teetering on the edge.   On Sakaar, he’d been able to imagine Asgard safe and whole and waiting for his return, for his rule, once he took care of that little matter of ridding the universe of The Grandmaster and taking over there in his stead.  Able to pretend that if he hadn’t seen Hela triumphant, it hadn’t actually happened.

He had stopped lying to himself the moment he left Sakaar.

He raised his voice slightly.  “I will tell you all.” 

The room fell silent, their eagerness for knowledge filling the room with a tense anticipation

Of course he did not tell all.  It was always important, in any story, to choose what to tell and what parts were best left out.  He skipped over the details of how Odin had happened to be on Midgard and went so quickly into the rest of the tale that all present were too caught up in his words to interrupt with questions.

“On Midgard, my brother and I discovered a secret our father had hidden from us for so long…” he began.  “Odin revealed to us that he had a daughter.  Had any of you remembered this from before?” he asked, looking from one face to another.  He gestured toward the oldest man in the room, so aged his grey beard nearly reached his waist.  “Hoskuld.  Do you remember aught of Hela?  Or of any wife Odin had before taking my mother to wife?”

The elderly man went to one knee at Loki’s attention, and rose at Loki’s gesture to rise.  “I do not remember her, Your Highness, nor of any wife the AllFather had before our beloved Queen,” he said, his tone revealing distress at what his lack of knowledge implied. 

_How had Odin done it?_   Loki had begun to guess the answer, but that was not something he needed to speak of.  Not at this time.  “He withheld this secret from all of us.  From Thor.  From myself.  That he had a daughter – his firstborn – the Goddess of Death – who he had kept imprisoned all these years, the secret known only to him.”

The crowd shifted.  Whispers filled the room, then quieted as Loki began speaking again.  He kept his voice solemn as he told the tale.  He elided many details, not knowing them himself, determined to question Thor to find out what he might have learned from Hela before Loki arrived with this ship.  People were intent on every word he spoke, followed every move he made, as he turned his attention to different parts of the room, as he gestured to illustrate his points. 

He had never, ever, had this type of single-minded attention before, this feeling of everyone hanging on his every word.  Not as himself.  Not as Loki, not with them all now knowing the true circumstances of his birth.

He wanted to revel in it, wanted to enjoy the energy thrumming through his veins, wanted to fill himself with a satisfaction he had never known before.

He wanted all that.  But the sight of what lay beyond the window behind him, the memory of being inside the Commodore, a piece of the rubble field tumbling wildly through space after Asgard’s explosion, was close to the surface of his mind.  He occasionally stumbled in the telling, his voice becoming rough.  The energy jittering through him felt far less the excitement of having everyone’s undivided attention and more like the rush of coming out of shock.  More like the aftermath of recovering from a near-fatal injury.  It overshadowed his need to embrace the adulation he had always desired, that need now taking a lesser place in his mind.

“Too late, Odin told us of what he had done,” he went on.  “But not how to forestall it.  Odin kept this secret from all of us.  Had he but confided in my brother and myself and his Councilors – ” again he met the eyes of the elder sages, “– we might have been able to prevent this disaster.  All he could tell us was that only his life held her back, and upon his death she would inherit all the power of the OdinForce: the Soul of Asgard, the power inherent to its ruler.  And when… Father told us his time had come.  He dissolved into light, no pyre needed for one such as he to lift his soul to Valhalla…  But his death released Hela back into our reality.  She demanded our fealty; we laughed in her face.”  He spun the tale on, adding the details that best pleased him: of himself, fighting fiercely alongside Thor against this new foe, telling a story they were all very familiar with – bravery and bravado in the face of overwhelming odds.  “We fought valiantly against her attack, but there was no hope of prevailing.  Thor hurled Mjolnir and she caught it – and crushed it with her bare hand.” 

There was such a cry of astonishment at these words that he had to wait several moments before it died down.  He glanced around the room again and found himself fixed on one face after another, many with tears in their eyes.

“Yes, it is true,” he continued gravely.  “She had such power that even Mjolnir, forged in the heart of a dying star, was no match for her.  Knowing nothing save that her power was like none we had ever witnessed, our only choice was to escape back to Asgard, to prepare our defenses against her.  But she grasped the power of the Bifrost itself and threw both Thor and myself through its border, sending us hurtling through interdimensional space.”

More shocked gasps.  He saw questioning faces, knew they longed to know more.  Knew also they would wait, rapt and attentive, until he finished the tale.

He was halfway through telling of the gladiator fight on Sakaar between Thor and the Hulk – “a most thrilling contest of truly evenly divided contestants, though of course the true champion was never in question – my brother – ” – when there was a stir at the back of the room.  He lifted his gaze from the now-seated crowd to see that Thor had entered the room and was standing just inside the doorway.  He was looking directly at Loki, his face expressionless.  Loki faltered for a second.  He then continued talking, but his eyes never left his brother’s face.

Thor strode forward, face solemn, betraying nothing of what he thought - and when had he learned that talent?  How long had he been there?  How much had he heard?  What would he think of Loki’s embellishments to their tale? 

Everyone had now turned to look at Thor.  People were making way, bowing, murmuring, “Your Majesty”.  They were no longer looking at Loki and he fell silent, thinking of all the ways he could respond to whatever Thor intended to say, never taking his gaze from Thor as his brother walked purposefully toward him.    


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter Valkyrie...

Thor strode down the main aisle, every inch a king even dressed in the remnants of his battered armor and the scrap that was left of his red cape.  Even his eyepatch seemed to grant him majesty, its echo of King Odin another reminder that here was their true ruler.  With Thor’s entrance, every Asgardian turned to watch his progress through the room.  They shifted position with his every step, turning to him like a plant to the sun as he passed them by and headed to where Loki stood, silent and waiting.  It was a struggle, but Loki kept a broad and welcoming smile on his face.

A remnant of that old envy passed over Loki’s mind then retreated like a wave that had lost its force.  Thor was alive.  He was alive.  They were **both** alive, despite everything, and the terror eating at his bones reminded him they both had much work to do.

Thor came to a halt right in front of Loki.  The crowd was now facing forward again, watching them intently.

“Brother,” Thor said, his eyes full of warmth, a smile of delight on his lips.  “You’re here,” he added in a low tone.   He reached out and clasped Loki’s forearm in the warrior’s greeting, his expression guileless and full of affection. 

Sentiment filling him, Loki returned the gesture and smiled winningly, waiting for Thor’s next move.  Hearing the rustlings in the crowd, Loki looked out over the sea of faces and saw that their mood had shifted again; that they felt strengthened and reassured this one thing remained:  The sons of the House of Odin were united again. 

Thor turned, moved to stand beside Loki, facing the people in the chamber.  He rested one arm around Loki’s shoulders and raised the other in a salute to the crowd.  Loki copied the gestures and the room erupted in a wild cheer that seemed to go on and on and on.

“My praise to all of you, the people of Asgard, your courage and warrior spirit, and to all of the fallen, those brave ones now rejoicing in Valhalla!” Thor shouted out and the crowd screamed their love back.  Thor tilted his head toward Loki.  “Later, we shall drink to them and to you all and to my beloved brother, who brought this ship and saved us all and fought most valiantly at our side.”

Loki could feel himself preening, grinning widely at the roared response from the crowd. 

Thor waited several moments for the cheering to die down, and then gave them his widest, sunniest smile.  He turned that smile to Loki, who found himself returning it in full measure.  “I have interrupted my brother’s tale, and a harrowing and triumphant one it is.  You were saying something about my glorious battle against the champion of Midgard?”

“Ah yes,” Loki said, and again faced the crowd.  “Glorious battle indeed!” he continued in his best bardic voice, and the crowd stilled, hanging on to his words.   Now, with all attention fixed on him again, and with Thor at his side, he let the force of their favor wash fully over him.   _These are my people.  I will do great things for them._

“If not for the perfidy of En Dwi Gast, he who called himself Grandmaster, who, at the moment when my brother most assuredly would have triumphed, struck Thor down with the same weapon he’d used to enslave him, certain that his chosen champion would otherwise fail to defeat Thor.”  He concealed a shudder, remembering exactly what that weapon had felt like, and shot Thor a brief remonstrative look.  Thor offered an apologetic expression.

“He and all of his court were waging coin on his own champion, of course, and certainly the odds favored the champion, as he had been previously undefeated.”  Loki took a moment to glance around the crowd again, just to make sure Banner wasn’t present in either of his forms, but there was no sign of him.

Loki went on to relate the rest, voice confident and strong, omitting a great deal, occasionally glancing at Thor to see how he was taking this version of the tale.  Thor gave him a sunny encouraging smile, and he kept going, intrigued by this new aspect of his brother’s personality, this willingness to accept a judicious editing of the facts.  He described the plan he and Thor had made and executed, to free the slaves, find the ships, and escape.  He didn’t bother to mention the actual reasons they left Sakaar in different ships, choosing instead to mention the suitability of the freighter as a rescue vehicle in case of need. Thor stayed silent, not contradicting anything he said, giving him an encouraging smile every time Loki looked in his direction.

The crowd was still rapt, so the snicker from the back of the crowd at the conclusion of Loki’s tale seemed as loud as a shout.  Loki’s gaze fixed unerringly on the person who dared to interrupt what he felt was the most compelling tale he had ever told, and felt his lips pull back in a menacing grin.

Scrapper 142 favored him with a lopsided grin of her own, full of malice and bravado.  She’d been leaning against the back wall, a near-empty bottle in her hand.  She took a final swig, let the bottle crash to the floor, then pushed herself upright and wove her unsteady way through the people around her.  She wandered along the main aisle, veering once or twice into the crowd, occasionally peering into faces of young and old alike, before stumbling back onto the pathway.  She then finally stopped halfway through the room and shouted, “Do any of you remember the Valkyrir?”

A chorus of voices erupted, many of the older people assuring her that yes, indeed, they remembered the Valkyrir and were honored to be in her presence. 

Thor called out in a strong voice.  “We do remember.  You know I do. Valkyrir loyalty and valor are legend.”

Her face contorted with rage and grief, she shouted again, “But do you remember US?  Do you remember my beloved Göndul?  Do any of you remember my name?”  She circled again, staggering slightly, directing her accusing gaze into the crowd.  She abruptly surged through a group of people and caught one scarred old soldier by the neckline of his robe.  Loki recognized him as one of those warriors whose age had removed him from the life of the soldiers and Einherjar and thus he had been too old to have fought with the other warriors and to die at Hela’s hands. 

The old man’s eyes were wide with recognition.  Scrapper 142 demanded, “Velief!  Do you know who I am?”

“How could I forget you, Brunnhilde?”  The old man reached out to her, then hesitated, hand still outstretched mid-air.  She did not take it.  “Do you not remember me?”

“Of course I do,” she spat angrily.  “I played in your garden many a time.”  Her voice went from anger to a softer tone in a handful of seconds.  She stared at him but did not take his hand, and he slowly lowered his arm.  “Do you remember Göndul?” Her voice was shredded with pain.

“Yes.  Of course.”  His brows furrowed tightly.  “You were inseparable.  She…” His voice trailed off.

“Do you remember what happened to us?” Her voice was nearly a scream and though the old man was taller she seemed to be looming over him.

“I…”  he started, and then his face twisted in confusion.  “You were a presence for so long…  Such glory, the sight of you on your steeds!  But…” And now his face betrayed pain.  “I—I don’t understand.  You just… Stopped being there.”

“We stopped being there.”  Brunnhilde repeated the words like she’d bitten into rotten meat.  “We all DIED!  I have been through this entire ship!  And NONE of you – “ she whirled around, pointing an accusing finger at the entire room, staggering as she came to a halt.  “NONE of you remember anything about what happened to us.”

The old man was staring at her with horrified eyes.  “No – that’s not true – we were told – “  He scrunched his eyes shut, remembering – “You all died tragically – but I don’t remember how.”

She turned away from him and shoved her way back to the center aisle, then broke into a run, covering the distance to the end of the room in seconds.  She stopped directly in front of Thor and Loki.  She pointed a finger at Loki.  “What do YOU know about this?  How is that no one remembers what happened to us?  How was this done, Lackey?”

People shouted in shock at her transgression.  Magic power fueled by rage surged through Loki’s body, but he kept it restrained, kept his hands away from his knives, ready to slice with words instead. 

The crowd fell silent again, the air charged with the expectation that dire consequences were able to befall her. 

Brunnhilde kept her cocky smile and stance.  Loki smiled dangerously.  “For one who has lived as you have all these years – ” he began.

Thor grabbed one of Loki’s hands and gripped it tightly.  Loki felt an unpleasant surge of power as tiny sparks of lightning scraped against the force of the magic he still held in restraint.  He sucked in a breath and stayed still, never taking his eyes off the Valkyrie.

“Enough!” Thor put every bit of the authority of his kingship in his voice.  “Brunnhilde, the stories of the courage and indomitable spirit and fighting skills of the Valkyrir are well known.”

“But how many among you remember our names?”  Brunnhilde glared defiantly at him.  “Were there any songs sung for us?  Any fire boats sent off into space, to bear our names to eternity?”

The room had gone dead quiet; and Thor sensed how everyone was hanging on their words, searching their own memories, waiting to see how he would respond.  “We do not know how this erasure of memory was done, but we will find out.” 

She harrumphed, capturing Thor’s eyes in a long stare.  “Yes, your Majesty,” she said finally and went to one knee, hand to shoulder, in movements just exaggerated enough to be one shade away from mockery.  Loki could see that none of her unrepentant attitude was visible to the crowd.  Loki glared at her, conveying the message that as soon as they were alone he’d have revenge for their last encounter.  She gave him a mocking smile in return.

Thor turned to the crowd again.  “There is much we do not know.  Prince Loki has told you of how our father kept much hidden from all of us.  But we need to know this truth – we WILL learn how this thing was done, and we will explain all these matters to you when we do.”

“I have a question.”  Another man, advanced in years, stepped forward, leaning on a cane.  Loki skin prickled and he tensed in preparation for another battle, immediately recognizing old Gunnlaug.  Many had been the time he had heard Gunnlaug speak with pride of the battles he had fought in Bor’s armies as a young man.  Gunnlaug had been, in earlier years, on Odin’s Council, but by Odin’s directive had retired to his home due less to his advancing age and more to his constant pushing for armed solutions to any difficulties that arose between the realms. 

Far more prominent in Loki’s mind were the memories of how Gunnlaug had often ignored Loki or displayed barely-concealed disdain.  How Gunnlaug had once called Loki a coward when he thought Loki was nowhere in sight.  But of course he had been nearby, spying on them, and had later caused him mischief.  Gunnlaug had known only too well who to blame for the temporary loss of his potency, but he had never again spoken those words of condemnation.

Brunnhilde was back on her feet, watching them with interest.

Loki’s right hand curled in their old war gesture to stop Thor from speaking an instant too late.  “Yes?” Thor responded to Gunnlaug, not seeing the trap opening before them.

“There’s still one question you haven’t answered,” said Gunnlaug, his accusing gaze focused directly on Loki, anger in his voice.  “Why did you take the AllFather’s place?”

Loki’s hand gripped Thor’s.  One glance, and Thor gave him a brief nod, meaning go ahead, but be careful.  Loki uncurled the fingers of his other hand from where they had formed a fist.  He projected his voice and again scanned the crowd to gauge their mood.  He didn’t bother to look at the old man.  Using the tone of voice he’d always found useful to get what he wanted, sounding reasonable and just slightly perplexed that anyone would question the obvious, he asked the crowd, “Do you not remember how Odin condemned Heimdall, Volstagg, Fandral, Hogun, and Thor himself to death for the part they played in saving Asgard from Malekith’s vile attack?  Think you that I would have allowed him to execute my brother?  Or those brave warriors, my brother’s dearest friends, who fought valiantly with him in so many battles?”

There was a muttering from the crowd, and suddenly the mood swung back to Loki’s side.  Gunnlaug clearly felt the shift, because after he looked at nearby faces the defiance drained from his face.  A man and a woman had come up behind him, both quite old themselves, both his children, and with gentle tugs forced him to turn and move back into the crowd with them.

Loki felt Thor’s hand shift beneath his grip and let go. 

Thor raised his voice, its deep rumble stilling the room, freezing everyone in place.  “None of this matters.  What has been done in the past doesn’t matter.    What matters is what we can do here and now. What we do together in the future.  For our future.  For all of us!  **For Asgard**!”

The shouts came back, multiplying again and again until it was an infinite roar, ‘ **FOR ASGARD**!”

Brunnhilde’s cynical laugh was lost in the noise.


	9. Chapter 9

Thor glanced at Loki as they left the main hold and headed down the wide corridor from which he could access every part of the ship.  There were people in the hallway, but they quickly stepped aside, leaving them plenty of space to pass. 

_That had gone well_ , he thought.  Loki was still smiling, having clearly enjoyed the huzzahs they had both received moments before.  It pleased Thor, to see his brother happy.

He hadn’t expected to find Loki inside the main room surrounded by their people.  He had truly believed Loki had left again, evading responsibility, still zigzagging back and forth from aiding Thor to leaving him again, like an animal in a maze missing the escape route every time, blind to the pathway to a better route.

It had been a surprise to find Loki speaking to all their people, telling a glorious, if exaggerated tale of their escape from Sakaar.  Loki’s presence had strengthened Thor’s resolve and hope for their future.  Now he realized that Loki’s arrival on Asgard with _The Statesman,_ and his return to the ship after the destruction of Asgard were clear indications that he had truly returned, not just to Thor, but to their people.

As Thor watched, Loki’s expression changed from a pleased smile to one of curiosity laced with a trace of anxiety.  “What next, brother?”

“I need to find out where Brunnhilde went to.”  The former Valkyrie had disappeared from the chamber some time during his speech.  Her wild and bitter reaction to her new circumstances after their successful rescue of the Asgardians troubled him.  Up until that point he hadn’t seen her since she and Hulk had gone off in search of a chamber suited to his bulk.  “I need to talk to her.” 

A cynical smile twisted Loki’s mouth.  “Find the largest cache of alcohol on this ship; I expect she’ll be in the middle of it.”

“She helped save us.  She’s one of us.”  But was she, now that they were on the other side of the battle?  “I need to know where she stands now.  What just happened – ”

Loki’s face didn’t become any less cynical.  “It’s not like she has any other place to go.”

“She needs to know she has a place with us.  She fought Hela with all the valor of the Valkyrir.   I cannot even imagine what it is like, to be forgotten.”

“No.”  Loki’s voice was quiet.  “No, I don’t imagine you could.”

Thor, worried about the trace of darkness he saw in Loki’s gaze, caught his brother’s arm.  “I meant what I said in there about leaving the past behind.  That doesn’t mean I think it is unimportant or that I won’t try to understand it.  There is so much I have never asked.”  Loki began to scowl, and he hastened to add, “And you have never told.”  Loki glanced away, but not before he caught a flash of pain in his brother’s expressive eyes.  “I have questions for you, when we have the time.”

“You may not like all the answers,” Loki’s said, and, though his tone was even, Thor heard well the trace of warning therein.  That there were unplumbed depths here, he knew full well.  Loki’s mind was full of secrets upon secrets, dangerous as any sorcerous elven trap for those unwary of their limbs, their minds, their lives.

Still, he said stoutly, “Better to know than stay ignorant.”

“Agreed.  There is much I need to tell you.”  Loki gave a tiny shake of his head and a twist of his lips, an expression that usually accompanied a snide comment on Thor’s foolishness.  Oddly, Thor found his reaction cheering, and began to smile.   Then Loki’s expression changed abruptly, quicker than Thor’s own lightning, his good humor replaced by an unmistakable flash of fear.

“What?”  Thor felt lightning prickle his skin, felt his muscles bunch, his body tense, preparing to face the certain approach of a yet-unseen enemy. 

Loki looked past him at the metal wall, its surface covered with evenly spaced protrusions shielding its various mechanisms.  In the center was an access panel, but Loki wasn’t looking at that.  Rather, his gaze was focused on a further distance, as if he were staring past the ship’s skin directly at some unknown threat.  “We need to get out of this area of space.”  His voice was low but urgent.  “Now, preferably.” 

Thor didn’t hesitate.  He’d seen that look on Loki’s face before, heard that tone in his voice before, and always had made the mistake of ignoring it.  Most recently on Jotunheim, just before his own pride and arrogance had led to disaster.  So many times before that, when Loki had urged caution and he had failed to heed his warning.  But now he had finally learned this lesson.  “All right.”  Shock at Thor’s easy acquiescence showed in Loki’s eyes. 

Thor turned around so quickly it took a moment for Loki to catch up as he headed back to the last corridor they’d passed, the one that headed to the lift that accessed the bridge.  Loki wasn’t even trying to hide his surprise at Thor’s decisive action.

“What?” Thor asked, veering left into the narrower corridor.  Loki kept pace with him as he headed down the long hallway, the blue-grey lighting throwing an eerie cast over Loki’s features and his own skin.

“You didn’t question me.”  _You didn’t doubt me_ , hung unspoken. 

“I _can_ remember all the times you gave me good advice and I paid no attention, with bad results.”

Loki shook his head.  “You **_have_** changed, brother.” 

“I’ve had a lot to think about.”  He waited a moment for Loki to roll his eyes or say something sarcastic, but when Loki just looked at him measuringly, he continued, “And I’ve come to understand how much I do not know.  Once we’re done here,” –  he paused in front of the lift, which immediately opened to his touch – “we’ll talk.”

Loki nodded and followed him inside.  “I will tell you all.” He frowned as Thor began to smile.

“I hope your ’all’ is more complete than what you told in the hold,” Thor muttered as the lift began rising.  “And more accurate.” 

Loki’s gaze was shadowed.  “There’s quite a bit to my tale.  It may take some time.”  An instant later the darkness had disappeared from his face.  He gave Thor an unrepentant grin.  “How did you like my story?”

Thor laughed.  It was good to see that expression on Loki’s face again. “Well told, brother.  You added some things.  You left some things out.” 

“As ever thus, when these tales get told.”  Loki offered Thor a cheeky smirk. 

“True.”  Thor nodded thoughtfully.  “Many’s the time I did so myself.” 

“And here I thought you believed all your own tales about your glorious victories.”  Loki lost the smirk as he stopped speaking.

“I mostly did,” Thor said, and his sunny smile faltered.  The lift door opened and they stepped out.

“One would have thought you won every battle by yourself, to hear you tell,” Loki went on as they started down the short corridor to the control room.

Thor wondered at first at the difference in Loki’s tone of voice, and then realized what he was hearing – or rather, what he was not hearing.  There had always been that nearly-concealed thread of envy and resentment in Loki’s voice when they talked about such things, but now there was little trace of it left.  He stopped halfway down the corridor.  Loki took a few steps past him then stopped and turned back.

Thor stepped forward, rested a hand on Loki’s shoulder, looking into his eyes.  “I gave myself too much credit and others too little.”  The shame that had overcome him when first he had come to these thoughts had been worse than any accusation of cowardice.  He understood now that courage was needed in other areas than battle, and that he must summon the bravery to say these words, lest he find himself a coward on this important ground.  “Many is the time, brother, that I left you out of my tales of triumph when in truth I would not have prevailed without you.  Or, I should say, we prevailed together, though I gave you no credit.”

Loki’s eyes betrayed astonishment, and then satisfaction.  Thor could see it now, the way emotions flickered across Loki’s face like the ripples of a stream – too swift to catch but visible all the same. 

“We’re not children anymore,” Thor went on.  “I’m not as much of an oaf as you think I am. 

“No,” Loki said, after a long, searching moment.  “You’re not.  And I have not thought so in some time.”

“I shall do better than I did in the past,” Thor assured him, pleased by Loki’s words.

Loki swallowed, and for a moment Thor thought he would make a similar reassurance.  Instead, Loki smiled, an expression without a hint of pretence.  Loki stepped closer, and moved as if he intended to embrace Thor, but just then a group of people emerged from the control room, then stopped respectfully.

“Let’s get this done,” Loki said, and the others stepped to one side, letting them enter the control room. 

The three women seated at the control panels turned to see who had entered.  Thor had been relieved to discover earlier that Asgard’s best pilots and navigators had survived, and the sight of them here at the ship’s controls heartened him. 

They rose and bowed respectfully.  Thor gave them a warm smile and waved a hand.  “From now on, there is to be no more bowing, no more kneeling, to either of us.”  Loki cut him a bemused glance, and Thor held his gaze.  “We’re all in this together.  I’ll make an announcement later.”  He turned back to the woman.  “Is the ship ready to travel?”

“Yes,” Astrid, the chief pilot, replied.  She, like the other two women, was wearing the distinctive clothing of the lesser vǫlur: long black tunics with loose black trousers beneath, decorated with collars and hems worked with gold and rubies.  Seeing Astrid again brought back memories of her teaching him how to fly skiffs and ships.  He remembered the way her intent eyes would fix on his, always respectful of his status while delivering concise descriptions of what he was doing wrong – and right – while her dark-skinned hands moved over the controls, showing him the correct ways to pilot different ships.  The centuries had been good to her.  Though she had been grown when he was young, her tightly-curled black hair, done in the traditional court hairstyle, was free from grey, and her copper-colored eyes were as accurate and far-ranging as Heimdall’s, though her ability was solely focused on the spaceways.

She and her two compatriots had been chosen to guide ships along Yggdrasil’s branches due to their talents in sensing the energy paths that led through the void, not simply the ones easily travelled but those more difficult passages, dangerous, near-impassable to those without their Sight.  Their skill with this seiðr was well renowned and gave the Asgardian people an edge over the peoples who relied upon mechanical sensors alone to guide their ships through the vastness of space. 

None, Thor knew, rivaled Loki’s talents in travelling between worlds, but these three were among the best that Asgard had ever produced.

Thor turned to Yngvild.  She looked at him attentively out of leaf-green eyes set in a cream-pale face.  Nearly as tall as Loki, she didn’t wear her hair in the Asgardian court style, but instead wound her blonde braid around her head like a crown. 

“We’ll be departing shortly,” Thor told her.  “Make a shipwide announcement telling everyone to be prepared.”

As Yndvild turned to her task and began speaking on the shipwide intercom, Thor turned to Loki, “Where to?  Alfheim?  Vanaheim?”  He saw the quick flash in Loki’s eyes that he had already considered and discarded those possibilities.  “I heard that you’ve been negotiating with them – and I need you to tell me everything about that as soon as we do this.  If their politics are not in our favor, what of Midgard?  I know that is not the best – ” 

“Nidavellir,” Loki said decisively. 

Thor frowned.  “I thought you said we shouldn’t go there.”

“I thought you were too drunk to remember what we said.”  Loki grinned.

Thor didn’t want to hope for the possibility of replacing Mjolnir even though Loki had said the mold might still exist, but now that Loki had set that idea back into his head he couldn’t let it go.  He could see by the look in Loki’s eyes that his thought processes were entirely transparent to his brother.  But he had to be sensible and not hope for the impossible.  “You yourself said they do not look upon you with favor.”  And for good reason – the dwarves hated Loki, if possible, more than the people of Midgard did. 

“Nor do they, but they all admire you.”

“Why Nidavellir?”

“The Allfather had ears everywhere.  They have been crafting a new weapon these past few seasons, a weapon better than even the ones we have acquired in the past, truly worthy of a god.”

That was exciting news, but Thor felt he had to remind his brother of the obvious problem.  “But we have no gold, as you yourself pointed out.” 

“We will find some other way.  Something else to trade,” Loki added hastily as Thor frowned, suspicious that Loki was planning to steal it.

“Maybe Eitri will accept credit,” Thor said hopefully.

Loki laughed.  “You sound more and more like a mortal these days.  I was thinking of deeds we could do in exchange.  Or the promise of future deeds.  And, we _do_ have holds full of remarkable items.  Though the dwarves would doubtless prefer gold to decadent Sakaaran goods, maybe we could find something they’d like enough in exchange.”

Thor was dubious, knowing full well the dwarves drew hard bargains – particularly for something as extraordinary as the weapon they were crafting – but he decided to trust Loki’s judgment. 

Yndvild had completed the shipwide announcement and was now sitting facing them, waiting for another order.

Thor glanced at the woman standing by the Navigation console.  Sigrún was watching them patiently.  Her hair was done in one long reddish-gold braid that reached her waist, and she’d been playing with the end nervously.  She let go of it as soon as she met his eyes.

“We travel to Nidavellir.  Plot the course.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” she said, then turned to Loki.  “May I ask your assistance, Prince Loki?”

“I’m getting rid of titles too,” Thor said, and this time Loki chuckled.  “Maybe you’re right and I have been among the mortals too long.” 

Loki shook his head and smiled, then leaned over the console as Sigrún programmed the coordinates.  She brought up a 3D image of the pathway from this point in space to Nidavellir.  An instant later and Loki had overlain the image with a sorcerous display, a sharp greenish glow outlining Yggdrasil’s branches and twigs over the computerized display of that route.  He and Sigrún conferred for a moment regarding the best branch along which to guide the ship.  Loki gestured and three pathways shone brighter than the others.  “I have travelled the shortest path on my own, but for a ship this size a thin twig would be too dangerous.”  Thor listened closely as they debated the pros and cons of the other two paths, and a moment later nodded in agreement. Sigrún looked up at Thor.  “We can leave now, if you like.”

Thor turned to Loki, who stopped him with a gesture.  “Before we go, we need to contact Sif.  If she was successful, she is bringing something to me we will need very badly.”

“I heard you were sending her out on quests.  Why Nornheim?  Karnilla has made no pretense of being a true friend of Asgard.”

“As one sorcerer to another, we understand each other.  Thor,” he held up a hand as Thor opened his mouth, “We’ll talk later.  I’ll tell you everything, then.  Right now, contact Sif.  If you can reach her, have her meet us at Nidavellir as soon as she can.”

Thor watched as Loki programmed ship identification coordinates into the _Statesman’s_ communication system.  “You know the reason for your mission – you should speak to her.”

Loki gave him the type of exasperated sigh that had always infuriated Thor.  “You need to be the one contacting her.  Unless,” Thor didn’t like seeing that wicked glint in Loki’s eye; the one that always meant the joke was about to be on him – “you want me to assume Odin’s guise again.  He’s the one who did the negotiations after all.  Remember, Sif thinks I’m dead and Odin is alive.”

 “Good point,” Thor said hastily. He did want to waste time explaining anything of what had happened to Sif.  Nor did he want to tell her the worst of it.  Not until she stood before him and they could grieve together for their fallen comrades.  “What should I say?”

 

A short time later, after a surprised and pleased Sif had concluded a brief conversation with Thor by agreeing to meet them at Nidavellir, and with the ship now on course there, Thor and Loki left the control room. 

Thor was still smiling as they headed toward the lift.  “I’m so glad she’s still alive.”  Just hearing her voice had helped heal something inside him; had given him strength against the grief that haunted his dreams.  “Whatever your reason for sending her on those quests, I thank you for it.”  When Loki didn’t respond, Thor proposed, “Shall we eat and talk?” 

“I need to speak to Eir first.”

Thor looked at him sharply, alarmed by the note of fear in Loki’s voice.  “What for?”  His body was already preparing for battle, his lightning still distant but ready for release.

Loki’s skin had gone alabaster white, and he had that faraway look again, as if he could see right through the ship’s walls into some terrifying sight beyond.  “I’m not a witch,” he said.  “But we need one now.”

Thor grasped Loki’s hand and flinched at the icy cold touch of his skin.  Loki, who always noticed the slightest thing, didn’t look down.  Thor held his hand all the more tightly, feeling the warmth of his own skin bleed away.  That startling coldness of Loki’s skin was something that only happened when Loki was truly terrified.  He’d never wondered about it before – it was just one more strange thing about his odd brother.  Now he knew it must be his Jotunn heritage.  It still didn’t matter – what mattered was Loki’s fear.  “Why?” he demanded.

Loki shook his head slightly and focused entirely on Thor.  “To discuss options.  I’ll do this, brother, then meet you back at your chambers.”

Thor decided not to question him any further and rely on trust.  “I’ll go look for Brunnhilde, then.”

Loki nodded and then he was striding away.  The surge of adrenalin racing through Thor’s body triggered by whatever worry now possessed Loki filled him with the need for action.  But the best thing he could do now was find Brunnhilde and talk to her.  Whatever was facing them, he was sure they would need her prowess in battle. 

Loki was doubtless right; he would find her wherever the alcohol was stored.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the long delay in updating. June was a very busy month at work and writing time was limited. I have Chapter 11 nearly ready for posting, as well.

It didn’t take long to locate Valkyre – _Brunnhilde_ , Thor reminded himself.  He’d headed to where he knew Korg and his fellow gladiators had taken over a series of multiple-occupant chambers that had probably been crew quarters.  When he arrived he found several of the gladiators in a larger chamber playing some kind of game of chance with various colorful improvised tokens.

Korg wasn’t there, but when he’d asked about Scrapper 142, there had been a chorus of hostile and obscene comments about the “slaver.” 

A heavily scarred, nearly naked mountain of a man stepped forward, spat on the floor, and told him where to find her.

He nodded and left, barely avoiding clapping one hand to his neck, remembering the feeling of that foul device Brunnhilde had placed there.  He should have anticipated the gladiators would not have forgotten who had enslaved them and sold them to The Grandmaster’s arena.  But he needed her, and their hostility was a complication he’d just have to deal with.

Now, heading towards his goal, the past few minutes with Loki flashed through his mind.  Loki’s look of fear, the quickly concealed panic in his eyes, was a clear sign trouble was coming.  The tide of battle was approaching – he could feel it.  Could feel the lightning within him, ready to burst free, craving an enemy to strike down.   Whatever Loki’s business was with Eir, he hoped it wouldn’t take long.  They needed to talk, and the sooner the better.

Following directions, he took three turns down short narrow corridors, winding up in a dimly-lit storeroom stacked near-full with large metal crates. 

Some of the crates had been opened and one, now empty, lay sideways on the floor near the door.  He kicked it out of the way. 

Brunnhilde was seated on the floor, her back against one of the larger metal containers, her eyes half closed.  She was surrounded by a circle of broken bottles.  One limp hand held another half-empty bottle that was perilously close to tipping over.

“Valkyrie…” he said quietly.

She widened her eyes and huffed in disgust when she saw him.  “Ah, Your Majesty.  You grace me with your presence.”  She gave him a half wave.  “You can go now.”

“Brunnhilde,” he tried again, and she jerked and sat upright. 

“Hah!” She scowled at him and lifted her bottle.  “Brunnhilde.  She’s dead.”  She emptied the bottle she was holding then hurled it to the floor where it shattered into a thousand sharp-edged fragments that scattered and glittered among the glassy debris already there.  “Another!” she shouted, grabbing a fresh bottle and fumbling to open it.

He dragged the empty crate in front of her, glass crunching beneath his feet.  He sat on the crate and waited.

After she’d drunk half the contents of her newest acquisition she looked at him again and narrowed her eyes.  “You’re still here.”

“I’m still here,” he agreed.

“I bet you didn’t like my little speech,” she said.  “Yours kinda sucked, you know.  All that rah rah patriotism.”

“You came with me.  You helped save us.”

“That was the Hulk.  And you and all that lightning power you magically have.  And,” she chortled, “Gast’s toy.”  Thor had no idea what his face revealed but he had no way to deny the implications.  He’d seen enough for himself in the expression on that foul being’s ancient lunatic face to guess for himself Loki’s position in the Grandmaster’s court.

Unbidden, he remembered his feelings of disgust when Loki had outlined his plans of how the two of them together could murder the Grandmaster and take over the rule of that trashheap, that decadent, disgusting world. 

That moment seemed very far away now; the emotions he had felt at the time now vanished in this new reality.  Then, he would have chosen to slay The Grandmaster face to face, had he been given the chance, but Loki had never been given to straightforward action.  Thor clearly remembered the times Loki’s intricate and unlauded plans had aided them in the past. Now he wondered if there had been the desire for revenge as well as power in Loki’s plan.

“That toadying shit,” Brunnhilde went on. 

“Do not speak of my brother that way.”  Anger flared, but he pushed it back.  He couldn’t waste time with this - he didn’t think they had any time to spare.

She rolled her eyes.  “Certainly, Your Kingliness.” 

Thor bit back the words about how she had been in the Grandmaster’s service too.  He reminded himself he had to remember how Loki had nearly betrayed all of them on Sakaar, and that though he’d forgiven Loki everything he couldn’t expect Brunnhilde to have done so.  He would never have escaped Sakaar without her help.  He reminded himself of Mother’s wise, and usually unheeded words, that it was best to think before speaking.  If only that wasn’t so hard to do.

Brunnhilde added cynically, “I didn’t get the feeling you two were exactly close.”

 “You’re wrong about that,” he said hotly and reminded himself again that none of this mattered.  He needed to find out where Brunnhilde stood.  Though if she kept on drinking like this, she wouldn’t be of any use to herself, much less to anyone else.

Brunnhilde suddenly laughed.  “How did the King react when he found out he had a _sorcerer_ son?”

Thor nearly snapped, furious at the obvious ergi insult, but she kept talking.  “I didn’t even know that could be done…  ” 

“What?” Thor asked, confused by the change in subject. 

She had leaned back against the crate, eyes half closed.  “…I saw it, all of it…  So many times – thought I could forget.”  She was no longer looking at him, staring past him instead to something existing only in her mind.  “It was all his fault,” she said.  “Gast’s lackey.  He ripped it from me – it all happened again!  I can’t stop seeing it!”  She rambled on incoherently for another moment and Thor listened with deepening concern.  He needed to know what she was going on about, but he was certain he was not going to get any kind of clear explanation from her.  He’d have to ask Loki what exactly had happened.  How much contact had the two of them had with each other before he arrived?

Brunnhilde gave a slight shake of her head and blinked her eyes, finally focusing on him again.  “Gotta say, I didn’t expect your brother to come to anyone’s rescue.    He always struck me as the kind who would put his own skin first, last, and always.”

“I knew he’d come,” Thor stated with absolute assurance.

She looked at him pityingly.  “`Fortune favors the foolish’,” she said, fixing him with her gaze in a clear attempt to make him realize she was talking about him.

He didn’t recognize the quote.  “I prefer to make my own luck.”

“And just how lucky do you feel now?” she asked.  “Floating in space in this – ” Words failed her and she waved the bottle around to indicate their surroundings. 

“We escaped Hela.  We’re alive.  It was always about saving my people.”

“And here they are.”  She paused to take another long swallow.  “All that are left, anyway.” 

The agony of that remark was like a sword thrust through his guts.  A tide of grief threatened to rise and overwhelm him again.  _A good king remains…_   She had a cynical smile on her face, and it was all he could do to keep from shouting at her; all he could do to hold on to the memory of her battling beside him instead of the memory of her taking him prisoner and selling him to that monster.  _A good king remains calm and sees the field entire, both in peace and in war._   It was as if Father’s voice was speaking directly into his ears, with an echo of Loki saying much the same thing as he was about to embark on some risky quest.

He drew a breath.  He met Brunnhilde’s gaze calmly.

“What do you want with me anyway?” she demanded.

“You fought bravely in battle. We owe you much.”

“And songs will be sung, blah, blah, blah.”  She leaned back against the crate again.  “Why did any of that ever matter to me?” she mumbled to herself, toying with a fresh bottle but not opening it yet.  Her eyes slid half-shut, and for a moment he thought she was going to pass out, but she opened them comically wide again.  “You’re still here,” she repeated. 

“Does that help?”  He gestured at the bottle she was holding, then waved at the broken shards around her.

“It’s never enough.”  Her mouth twisted into a mirthless smile.  “But I keep trying.”  She frowned at him.  “What do you want with me anyway?” she repeated.

“I need to do everything I can to assure a good future for our people.  I need to be certain you’re on our side.”

Her eyes blazed.  “I’m on nobody’s side.   I got what I wanted.  That hag, destroyed.”  She chuckled without humor.  “I didn’t expect to still be here, after.  Isn’t that what it’s all about?  Death in glorious battle.  Next stop, Valhalla.”  She lifted the bottle in a salute.  “It’s what we all pledged ourselves to do.  And then we all died.”  She slammed the bottle to the floor.  Shards exploded and a tide of alcohol spilled out, filling the room with its sharp scent.  Thor didn’t flinch.  She sat up straight, her face contorted in grief.  “I should have died with them!  In the slaughter!  There was no glory in _that_ battle!”  She sucked in a deep breath.  “I thought I’d die trying to avenge their deaths.  And – we did – avenge their deaths – but now I’m here and no one remembers us.  Then…” she hung her head and when she spoke again her voice was so low, so shattered, he could barely make sense of her words.  “I thought I had died with the others but when I awoke the bodies were everywhere around me and none came to save us or bear my sisters’ bodies away.”

Thor reached out a hand, tried to rest it on her forearm, but she slapped it away.  “Look, just drop me off at your next stop.  I don’t care where.  I’m outta here.”

“You can have a place here.  With us.”

She laughed.  “With the ones who don’t remember me?  Or the ones who remember me all too well?”  She gestured with a fresh bottle to some vague destination beyond the chamber’s walls, then opened it.  “I caught and sold most of them to The Grandmaster, you know.”  Her laugh seemed as broken as the shards on the floor.  “Just like you.”

“We learn from what we have done and do better,” he said, again hearing the echo of Father’s voice, and what he himself had said in the main hold earlier.  _What has been done in the past doesn’t matter._

“Or we don’t,” she snarled.  “I don’t expect them to forget what I did to them.  I don’t expect them to forget how many of the ones I sold died in the arena.  I wouldn’t.  The funny thing is apparently you’ve forgotten what I did to you.  But they won’t.  So here I am, among enemies and strangers.  Who, besides you, wants me here?”

“You still know some of the people you call strangers.  And they know you.  They know of the deeds you and the Valkyrior accomplished, to Asgard’s glory.  And, they saw how you fought against Hela.” 

She started to laugh, choked, coughed, took another slug, and swallowed.  “Nice try, your Majesty.  That’s not working on me.”  She snorted.  “What happens when they find out what I’ve been, where I’ve been, what I’ve done?”

“If what I fear is correct, there will be other wars for you to earn glory.  What you do now and in the future is all that matters.” 

She shook her head.  “For a thousand years I fought for no cause, no king, no land, no glory.  I have fought my last war.  The first chance I get, I’m gone from here.”

Her expression reminded him some battles cannot be won and that he must focus on winning the war, whatever this one might be.  “All right,” he said finally and stood up.  “We are on course to Nidavellir.  If you still want to leave when we arrive there, you can ask Eitri and his brothers for permission to stay for however long you need.  Or find passage elsewhere.”

“Nidavellir,” she slurred, leaning back against the crate, eyes almost closed.  “Why ever are you going there…   I just wish…” she mumbled, her voice trailing off.

“What?”

“That I’d been able to drive my sword through that hag’s heart.  She’s dead.  And that doesn’t make up for anything.”  She fell silent again, eyes closing completely.

Then she started awake as a comm signal sounded and a woman’s voice asked for “King Thor.”

He went to the wall unit.  “Yes?”

The woman’s voice sounded both alarmed and baffled.  _“We found a strange man wandering the corridors.  He was asking for you.  He says his name is Bruce.”_

Brunnhilde began giggling.  “Who would have thought,” she gasped, “that they were the same person.  I went to sleep awhile ago, next to my big friend, and woke up by that tiny man.  Now my friend is gone too.”  One hand was still wrapped loosely around a bottle but she made no effort to lift it to her lips.

Thor spoke into the wall unit.  “Where is he?”

_“We took him to the healing chamber.  Do you want us to lock him in one of the rooms?”_

“No,” Thor said.  “I’ll be right there.”  Glancing back at Brunnhilde, who had closed her eyes again and appeared to be asleep, Thor quickly made several decisions.  He knew he wouldn’t be able to get her to leave this room and he wasn’t going to shame her by carrying her out.  He’d get someone to come check on her, take her somewhere where she could sleep without being in the proximity of so much alcohol.  He’d talk to Bruce about her.  See if he still didn’t share any of Hulk’s memories.  If he did remember anything the Hulk did, maybe he could convince her to stay. 

He needed, most of all, to talk to Loki.  To find out what they were facing.  To make plans.  Because whatever Brunnhilde believed about the past, remembering the fear he’d seen in his brother’s eyes, he knew the future was all that mattered.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enter Bruce Banner...

“…and here I wake up again and don’t even know where I am!  Not that that isn’t the story of my life,”  Bruce Banner said and rubbed the center of his forehead. 

Thor kept his attention on Bruce and let him rant.  When he’d arrived at the healing chamber – a room that had clearly served the same function for its previous crew – one of the völva had led him to a side chamber where two more women were seated with Bruce at a metal table.  Bruce, his hands around a cup that probably had held water, was wearing a orange-and-purple Sakaaren robe that dwarfed his small frame.  The vǫlur were watching Bruce carefully, and Thor was not surprised by the expressions of relief on their faces when they spotted him.  He’d gestured them out and sat down at the table with his friend.

Bruce had just been sitting there, looking shellshocked, but his eyes had brightened as soon as he had spotted Thor.  And then his eyes widened further and his jaw went slack with horror.  “Thor – what – your eye – what happened?!?”

Thor instinctively put his hand up to the eyepatch.  “You remember nothing of what happened on Asgard?”

“Of _course_ I don’t remember.  I _never_ remember.  You know that.”  Bruce scowled ferociously.  “What happened?”

“I lost my eye by the hands of my sister while defending Asgard,” Thor began, shoving aside his disappointment that, without Hulk's memories, Bruce would not be able to help with Brunnhilde. He'd hoped, improbably, that just this one time some memories would have stayed with him.

Bruce began peppering Thor with questions.  Thor hadn’t gotten far in his explanation when Bruce began speaking rapidly, too many words trying to escape him at once.  “I’m used to waking up in strange places without having any idea how I got there, but this!  Twice now – TWICE! – I can’t even believe I’m saying this.  First I’m on an alien planet and now I’m on an alien spaceship heading to yet another alien world.”

“Yes, that is the truth of it,” Thor said, thinking on how best to calm his Midgardian friend.  When he’d first entered the main room, he’d sent for a variety of food and drink.  The völva who had been there to greet him had been surprised by his request for some of the plain ration bars – Thor had decided they closely resembled the granola bars Bruce seemed to favor.  He asked them also to search for something that might be equivalent to the Midgardian varieties of beverages that were all called “tea”, and as an afterthought also asked them to find something similar to the sweet-smelling cigarettes Bruce occasionally smoked that always seemed to calm him.

Banner shook his head, leaned forward and set his elbows on the top of the table.  “You were supposed to take me back to earth once this was over,” he said sharply.

“Many things changed after you leapt from the Commodore to fight the Fenris wolf.”  Thor considered where he ought to begin.

Bruce, still scowling, laced his fingers and set his chin against them.  “I jumped out of that ship to send The Other Guy to fight that giant wolf – how is this even my reality?" he grumbled. "Then again, I shouldn’t be surprised by anything now.  I saw that rainbow colored bridge rushing up to meet me – then nothing.  Till I woke up.  I think I dreamed I was sleeping with your friend – that woman who seemed so familiar.  Then I woke up alone in a big empty room, naked – as usual! – with no idea where I was.  The only things there were piles of this stuff!”  He plucked at the sleeve of the robe he was wearing.  “Don’t space aliens like beds?  Sheets?  Or, I don’t know, do aliens think clothing is for sleeping on, not wearing?  And I still don’t know where I am!  What did I do down there?  How did we get on this ship?  Your friends, your people – they didn’t tell me anything.”

“They didn’t know who you were.  They supposed you had gained entrance to this ship by magic and most likely were an enemy.”

Bruce rubbed his head.  “Start from the beginning.  I jumped out of that ship, and…”

 

Some time later, Thor finished his tale and Bruce leaned back in his chair. 

Bruce took a deep breath.  Another.  “Quite a story,” he said at last, then added plaintively, “Are you sure we can’t go back to Earth?”

“Loki thinks it best to go to Nidavellir.”

Bruce stared at him in extreme concern.  “Are you taking orders from him now?  Does he still have some kind of mind power?  Is that what this is all about?”  Bruce leaned forward to peer into Thor’s one remaining eye.  Thor calmly let him.  Bruce pulled back a bit, frowning, then his gaze turned to the eyepatch.  “And you said your sister did this!  Thor, I hate to say this, but your relatives are as bad as my father.”  His voice dropped at that and he slumped back, his right hand automatically going to check the pulse in his left wrist.  He began taking slow, even breaths.

Thor gave him a moment, and when Bruce appeared to be calmer, said, “I agree with Loki’s choice.  I want to go to Nidavellir.  That’s where Mjolnir was forged.  As long as there’s the chance I can get a new hammer – ”

A discreet voice called from the other side of the door.  “My King?”  Thor brushed aside the feeling that she was asking for his father and decided he really need to make that announcement about not using titles anymore.  “Come in,” he said.

The völva he’d first seen entered, trailed by two other women bringing food.   They set out dishes of various types, as well as glasses, utensils, and pitchers, then left. 

“There isn’t some kind of slug in there, right?” Bruce peered at a bowl full of chopped vegetables and some kind of soft white cubes.  He inspected one of cubes thoroughly and then nibbled at the edge.  “Not bad,” he admitted.  “Not good either.”  But soon he was digging away at the food.

Thor joined him and was pleased to discover they’d managed to find some drink that did indeed resemble tea.  He didn’t drink any himself, but Bruce seemed happy enough after the first sip.

“So, your brother,” Bruce began again.

“He saved all of us,” Thor reminded him, and this time Bruce paid attention to the definite note in his voice.

“All right,” Bruce said after a moment.  “He’s a good guy, for now.  Situational ethics.  It’s not like there’s anything I can do about it.”

They’d finished less than half of the meal when, without bothering to announce himself, Loki strolled in, smiling with just a hint of teeth, the look in his eyes verging on mania, his hands flexing at his sides.

They both stood.  Bruce made an attempt at a menacing stare while Thor looked at Loki in concern.  He’d seen Loki like this before – jittery with excitement when about to launch a complex plan he and Thor had both agreed upon.  He knew that usually Loki could completely conceal his hidden plans and intentions.  Often Loki was the voice of calm reason, pointing out the flaws in any of his, or a larger group’s, strategy.  But sometimes, facing a dangerous battle, he seemed full of a sparking, nearly uncontainable energy that he didn’t bother to conceal.  At these times Thor was certain that if he could just squint properly he would see an aura of sorcerous power surrounding his brother.

Loki gave Banner a sly smile.  “I see the beast is asleep again.”  Bruce met his gaze and kept staring.

“Loookiiiiii,” Thor said, exasperated.  Loki grinned, unrepentant.

“Something you should be grateful for,” Bruce pointed out.  “I saw what happened to Tony’s floor.”

Thor looked at first at Bruce and then at Loki in alarm, but Bruce still appeared to be calm and Loki didn’t seem in the least bit irritated.

“Hmm,” Loki darted a glance to Thor, then refocused his attention on Bruce.  “I expect you don’t remember, but you did the same thing to Thor in the arena.” 

“What?” Bruce said, turning to Thor.  “You left that part out!”

“I still won,” Thor assured him.

Bruce shook his head in disbelief.  “You’ll never convince me of that.”

“Actually, he did win,” Loki put in.  “If the Grandmaster hadn’t cheated – ”

“Oh, and I’m supposed to believe anything you say!?” Bruce looked at him suspiciously.

Loki’s expression changed from a smirk to consideration. 

“What?” Bruce demanded when the stare seemed to go on a bit too long.

“It occurs to me that I only ever considered your use as your, ah, other persona before, but I recall now you were Stark’s equal or better in intellect.”

“Why are you complimenting me?  What do you want?”  Bruce was frowning, his hands starting to clench into fists.

Loki gave him a guileless smile.  “There are decisions that need to be made.  There are actions that must be taken.  There is work that must be done.  You have an exceptional intelligence, for a Midgardian.”  Bruce frowned at the condescension.  “And that makes you one of the few aboard this ship who may have the intelligence to understand and assist with some of what we must do.”

“You’re a liar and a manipulator,” Bruce stated, and Loki’s expression became one of amusement.  Bruce glanced at Thor.  “Any reason why I should believe him?”

“Yes,” Thor said, then looked at Loki expectantly.  “What do you need Bruce’s help for?  I need to know what we are facing.”

Loki’s expression turned into one of dead seriousness.  “Yes.  You do.  But you and I alone, for now.”  He looked back at Bruce who was holding his left wrist in his right hand again, his thumb on the pulsepoint.  Loki glanced down at Bruce’s unfinished meal then looked back at Bruce.  “The vǫlur now understand who you are and that you are Thor’s friend and shield-brother in both of your forms.  They will bring you anything you need and give you a suitable chamber.” Bruce opened his mouth to speak, but Loki kept talking.  “They will answer any of your questions that they are able.  We,” Loki glanced at Thor, “will speak to you later.”  Loki turned back to Thor.  “Let us go to your chamber.  There is much we must discuss.”

“Wait a minute,” Bruce said.  “You need to tell me what you need me for.  Right now.  Because I have absolutely no reason to trust _either_ of you.”

“Friend Bruce,” Thor said, “You _can_ trust me.”

“Why?” Bruce demanded.  “All you wanted me for was to smash your enemy.”

“And if you hadn’t, we wouldn’t be here now.  We’d all be dead.” Bruce radiated suspicion and Thor, wishing he had Loki’s powers of persuasion, and wishing that Loki would bother to use those powers now, said, “I swear to you, that I will see you returned to Midgard as soon as I am able.”  Bruce was still looking at him suspiciously, and Thor felt a twinge of regret for what he had been forced to do to achieve his goals.  How did Father ever manage all these complicated things? he wondered.  But there was no time now to consider those thoughts; no time to do anything but what he must.

“Well,” Bruce said at last, then looked at Loki, “At least you don’t want to use me to smash things.”

“No,” Loki said quickly.  “I most certainly do not.  Thor, the sooner we talk about this, the sooner we can begin.”

Loki turned and headed to the door.  Thor took one last look at Bruce, who hadn’t lost his look of distrust, then fell in step behind Loki.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki and Thor finally talk.

During the walk to Thor’s chambers the jagged energy that had filled Loki in the healing chamber had receded slightly, but that made Thor even more eager to finally learn what Loki’s visit to Eir was all about.  The door had barely closed behind them when Thor grasped Loki’s arm and turned his brother to face him.  Loki glanced down at his arm, and Thor let go.

“Brother.  What is the danger and what is your plan?  What enemies do we face?  What are their strengths?  Their weaknesses?”  Whatever was coming, they needed to be ready.  He felt it, the power of the lightning he controlled, ready and needing only to know where to strike.

“We must hold a _galdr_.”  Loki said.  His voice was flat, but his eyes were filled with purpose.  “I have spoken to Eir, and enough of the volur remain to cast a Nine-Circle.  She will send word when they are ready.” 

“A _galdr!_ ”  Adrenalin surged.  A Nine-Circle had only been cast once in his lifetime, and then on the eve of the great battle on Harokin.  Witches could foretell the future by themselves or in smaller circles, but a Nine!  That was a vast and powerful working, reserved for only the most formidable of foes, as it took immense magickal power to trace the possible outcomes of battles with foes so formidable they threatened Asgard itself. 

_If only this could have been done before Hela’s return –_

_Do not think of the past,_ he reminded himself.  _Focus on the battle ahead._ His heart, his soul, his strength were already girding for an enemy to pit his might against.   

Loki swallowed, his eyes darkening.  He turned and strode over to the window.  Thor joined him, but kept his gaze on Loki’s profile.  His brother stared out into the darkness of space, reminding Thor how he had done so earlier this day:  how Loki seemed to look beyond the bounds of the ship’s walls as if he could see into infinity itself.  His skin prickled.  When he spoke his voice sounded overloud in the quiet room.  “What is it you – ” he barely avoided saying the word ‘fear’, careful not to insult Loki with the implication of cowardice “ – see?”

“It is what I do not see.”  Loki’s voice lowered to a bare whisper, became so low Thor strained to hear, the background hum of the ship’s engines suddenly intrusive.  “Too often the past reappears as if it lives again.” 

Loki kept staring out into space and for a moment it seemed as if he had forgotten Thor was there.  Then his focus snapped back to Thor’s face, and whatever expression his face had held was wiped away to blankness, his eyes veiled, hiding their secrets.  Thor’s worry increased, and whatever Loki saw in Thor’s face caused him to frown.  Loki turned to confront him fully, making a visible effort to relax.  “You know I cannot see the future.  As for the present, I have not Heimdall’s vision.  I see nothing but my own thoughts.” 

“Why did we have to leave Asgard’s space so quickly?”

Thor sensed Loki’s fear, racing like lightning across his skin.  “There are dangers approaching us.  Heimdall has seen them, or a trace of them.  There are things hidden from his Vision; I am not alone in my ability to conceal myself from his eyes.”

“How close?” Thor demanded, his hand clenching, still seeking lost Mjolnir. 

“We still have time.  But we must use it wisely.” 

“You said you would tell me everything.”  Thor kept his voice calm, without any trace of accusation, even his thoughts raced, demanding to know – now! - the truth of what they faced with no further delay.

“I will.  But first I must ask a question of you:  Why did you go travelling among the Nine if you were seeking solely for Surtur’s crown?  You spoke of your dreams.”  Loki looked at Thor intently.  “Tell me of your dreams, brother.”

Thor drew in a breath, let it out again, unsurprised by Loki’s evasion.  Unwillingly, he let the memory of his dreams surface.  “Asgard.  In flames.  Falling to ruin.”  His throat felt raw, as if speaking these words was akin to swallowing glass. 

“You saw flames,” Loki repeated.  “and yet you visited the other Realms.  Why not go to Muspelheim first?”

“Because that wasn’t my first dream.  No.”   Thor held up a hand, “Not a dream.  A vision, caused by a Midgardian witch.”

“A witch,” Loki repeated.  “You _have_ had adventures on Midgard, brother.”

“There was a mortal witch named Wanda Maximoff.  We Avengers fought a mechanical man, and she was his ally though later she changed sides.  I saw all of Asgard, dead, in Hel.”  The memory of Wanda’s touch, the horrible images of the wild and fantastic creatures he had seen sent a chill through him.  Loki was watching him intently.  “In the vision, Heimdall spoke to me.  His eyes were nothing but white light.  Heimdall warned me of where my power leads.  He said I would destroy.  He told me to wake up, but when I did, I could not understand his meaning.  I should ask Heimdall of this – if I only dreamed this or if he was aware too.  Because we were all dead, all in Helheim,” Thor said heavily.  “None survived.” 

“Does this witch See true?” Loki asked.  “Or did she seek to deceive and frighten?”

“I know not.” 

“You said she changed to your side.  Did you ask her the meaning of your vision?”  Loki interlaced his fingers tightly together.

“We were in the thick of battle; there was no time.  Nor did I entirely trust her.  Nor,” he paused, swallowing, the force of the memories as fresh in his mind as if he had just experienced them, “did I wish to speak to her of it.  She has such power, brother!  I did not know Midgardians possessed sorcerers and witches who possess such seiðr.”

“You must tell this to Eir.  She will know if you saw a possible future.”

“I thought, with Hela, the meaning was clear, but that we had changed it, that though Asgard perished as a land her people live.  But there was more in the vision.  I saw something else – colored shapes set in the heavens.  I could not rid myself of this vision.  I went to the Water of Sights and asked for answers.”

Loki’s eyes widened.  “You went seeking wisdom from the Norns.  What saw you?”

“I saw the scepter you bore, flung to the heavens.  The stone it contained broke free and hurled itself into space.  I saw five more stones, each breaking free of whatever contained them, arcing across the stars, a rainbow of power and destruction.”    He gestured as if Loki could see what he saw.  It was so clear in his mind:  the brilliant colors outshining everything in the skies. 

Loki’s face had gone salt white, his eyes full of fear.  His hands moved restlessly, falling to his sides, then clasping together again.  “What else?” he asked.

Loki’s fearful reaction spurred Thor’s need to take action.  But tactics and strategy required information and careful planning.  Loki needed this information from him just as much as he needed answers from Loki.  “The Norns spoke through me while I was in the Water,” he continued, and Loki started in surprise.  “My friend Erik Selvig who accompanied me said I spoke of the Infinite Six, that which cannot be joined or kept apart,” Thor went on.  “There was much left to be done on Midgard, but when we had defeated our foes, I determined I must leave and go in search of the stones.”

Loki hummed deep in his chest. “Thor, what do you know of the Infinity Stones?” 

“Only what our tutors taught us.  They were there at the beginning of the universe – some say they created the universe, or were used by the unknown gods to create the universe.  Old stories, I thought, but old stories become new dangers suddenly and without warning, as Malekith did.” 

Loki looked down, shoulders slumping, and Thor, caught by a knifestab of grief, grasped Loki’s forearms.  He saw his brother’s hands clench into fists.  Loki’s breath grew harsh, and Thor let go of his forearms and gently closed his hands around Loki’s fists.  Loki pulled his hands away, then reached back and gripped Thor’s hands, his breathing slowing, calming.  Their fingers interlaced.

“Loki, four of the Infinity Stones have shown up in the last few years,” Thor said urgently. “You yourself wielded two of them.  Someone is gaming with us, using us as pawns.” 

Loki drew in a sharp breath and looked up, a bright sheen of tears in his eyes.  Thor paused, waited, but when Loki didn’t speak, he went on.  “Whoever that being is, it is bringing all the pieces into position.”  Loki let go of Thor’s hands and crossed his arms defensively in front of his chest.  Thor swallowed, the dreams bright and vivid in memory.  “I dreamed the Stones and Ragnarok were somehow connected; that I must search for them, find them, and then I could prevent all.  Yet Ragnorak is behind us, and the Stones had nothing to do with it.”

“Do you still dream of them?”

“I dream of Asgard burning,” Thor’s voice went low. 

“As do I.”  Loki’s eyes were dark with pain. 

 “Loki, you know who is behind this.  Who is our enemy?”

“Many desire the stones,” Loki said evasively, looking down again, and Thor suddenly wanted to shake him, to force him to stay on the subject, to tell him to save his winding around the truth and elusive storytelling for simple campfire tales, not battle plans. 

“Loki, do you not yet trust me?”  The hurt he felt was naked in his voice, his face.  Thor raised his hands toward Loki, then when Loki did not reach back he dropped them to his sides.

Loki’s gaze faltered, then his expression crumpled into a hurt and anguish so vast Thor could not comprehend its extent.  “I do, brother,” he said, his voice a bare whisper.  Loki took a step toward him, and finally lifted his hands.

Later, Thor did not remember taking Loki into his arms, Loki was just suddenly there, clinging to him, holding as tightly as one terrified of falling.  Thor found he was weeping even as one hand stroked Loki’s hair, his back, his other hand tight around Loki’s waist as his brother’s body shuddered.  The loss of Mother, the loss of Father, the loss of so many of his people, the loss of Asgard – something broke in Thor and all the grief he had been holding back hit him with tsunami force.  Loki was clinging to him tightly, and Thor, still weeping, kept caressing his hair, the motion soothing them both. 

“I need to know, brother,” Thor said finally, when he could trust his voice.  “Who is our enemy?”

Loki’s skin went ice cold, fear radiating him like an aura.  The hackles went up on Thor’s neck and he felt lightning playing at his hands.

Loki broke the embrace, stepped back, and dragged a hand across his eyes.  He looked at Thor’s hands, but the sparks had already faded.  Loki lifted his chin and met Thor’s gaze.  When he spoke his voice held a slight tremor, but it strengthened with every word he spoke.  “You will need all of your strength and so much more with the danger we face.”

“What is it we face?” Thor asked quietly.

“When I tell you, do not speak his name,” Loki said urgently.  “I wish to send no signals.  He is called the Mad Titan.”

Thor’s hands clenched into fists, dread growing deep inside him.  In their old tutoring chambers he’d heard that Name, spoken in whispers, as if merely saying it aloud could summon his presence.  Thor almost said it anyway, then swallowed the two syllables back.  _Heimdall said their enemy was on the approach._ Here, in this weaponless ship his lightning could not defend them from attacks from space.  He felt that vulnerability keenly.  “Tell me more.”

“He cannot reach us now, not at this moment, but we cannot afford to do anything to draw his attention to our location.  Not as we are now.”  Loki drew in a deep breath.  “So you went searching for the Stones.  Why did you look among the Nine?”

“The Mind Stone and the Time Stone are on Midgard.  I did not understand when you wielded the scepter in your quest to rule Midgard – ” He stopped abruptly, wishing the words unspoken.

“I never wanted to rule Midgard!” Loki hissed, eyes filling with rage and pain. 

Thor reached out to him, but did not touch.  Suddenly, so much was becoming plain.  When he had asked his brother on that Midgardian mountain who had shown him the power of the Tesseract – when he has asked him _Who controls the would be king?_ – he had let his anger and frustration rule him.  Since then, he had thought over every part of that disturbing conversation many times and never caught one glimpse of an answer.  Now…

“Brother,” Thor said, his voice heavy, his eye full of pleading.  “I understand that now, but not the why of it.  Surely now you can tell me all.”

Loki shuddered, squeezed his eyes shut.  When he opened them again they were over-bright.  “Not now,” he said, his voice ragged.  “` _All’_ would take too long.  When did you learn the scepter contained the Mind Stone?”

For all his desire to learn the details of Loki’s plan, Thor yet hesitated, needing to know the cause of Loki’s fear and anguish.  Loki narrowed his eyes.  Thor turned his attention back to the question, understanding that the more he knew of any of this, the more he could help Loki.  Help them all.   “I came to understand what it was when I returned to Midgard once the Bifrost was repaired, and found that it had fallen into the hands of enemies called HYDRA.”

Loki scoffed, “Of course it did.  SHIELD was riddled with traitors.”

“You knew?” Thor asked, surprised.

“One of those who – assisted me – was of HYDRA.  He explained much when I asked him to tell me the secrets of SHIELD, but that particular bit of information was of no use to me.”

Thor stared at him for a long moment, then shook his head.  Loki was right:  they didn’t have time to discuss this now.  “The Mind Stone is now in the forehead of the construct called Vision.”

“Yes, I have seen that.” Loki said.  “I have been keeping watch on Midgard’s events.”

“Then why ask me about the witch?”

“Much happens on Midgard; I had not the time to see all your deeds.  I had not known of this Wanda Maximoff until you told me of her.  I looked mainly to be sure the Stones there remain safe.”

“Since you exiled Heimdall, how have you watched?” 

Loki smiled with a hint of self-satisfaction.  “Without the partially-all-seeing Seer, it became more complicated.  Seated on Asgard’s throne, I was able to see wherever I chose to look within the Nine, but outside its boundaries it is far more difficult.  There are many ways to scry, but they require more preparation, and I could not always spare the time.”

“The Time Stone is also on Midgard, or so I have been informed by friend Stark, but I know not where.”

Loki huffed a laugh, an amused twist to his lips.  “Did you not notice it?  No, I expect not.  It was hanging on a cord around the neck of that dilettante Midgardian wizard who, I assure you, will pay for his disrespectful behavior to me.”  He gave Thor a challenging look.

Thor’s eye widened, then narrowed.  “He treated me like a fool,” he grumbled.  “Transporting me from place to place, making sure each time that I would fall into something or drop something.  He did it for no reason save to mock me.  I did not catch him laughing at me, but he was, I am sure of it.  But,” his lips curled into a smile, “When I called Mjolnir to my hand it did create quite a chaos in his dwelling.”

Loki laughed out loud.  “The next time I see him, I’ll create some chaos of my own.” 

Thor smiled.  “That will be a most entertaining day, brother.” 

Loki grinned and then his expression turned serious again.  “I have given the Time Stone much thought.”

“It is far from us now,” Thor pointed out.

“Perhaps not as far as you think.” 

Thor tried to interpret the calculating look on Loki’s face and felt he had to point out, “Strange _is_ a most powerful wizard.”

“He caught me by surprise.  That will not happen again.”  Loki had that look in his eyes that Thor well recognized and knew that many who had crossed his brother had come to rue the day.  Then his expression changed to one of speculation.  “I need to learn more about him.  Only one incredibly foolhardy – or very powerful – would display the Time Stone so publicly.  I will not underestimate him.”

“So there are only two we need to find.  Can you tell me your plans, brother?  How do we find the other two?”

“They are beyond the borders of the Nine.  I have scryed for them, but all I can determine is distance and general location – nothing further.  And in this ship, without the Bifrost, they are beyond our reach.  For now.”

“Are they within the reach of the Mad Titan?”

“That is why I’m calling the _galdr_.  We will be able to determine their location.  And _his_.  And seek the best pathways to our goal.”  A tiny smile suddenly touched Loki’s lips.  “What were you going to do with the Stones when you found them?”

“Give them to father,” Thor said slowly.  Loki’s grin widened and Thor punched his arm.  “I would have figured it out when I saw the statue.”

“So you knew ahead of time?”

“Surtur told me.”

Loki’s eyebrows went up.  “What?”

“He said,” Thor paused to remember, “’Odin is not on Asgard. And the throne was defenseless.’”

“Why, that… How did he know?”

Thor shrugged.  “There’s more than one sorcerer in the Realms.”

“Karnilla.”  Loki’s eyes flashed with anger.  “I knew I couldn’t trust her.”

Thor absorbed that information.  He did not have a particular suspect in mind, but Karnilla was an obvious choice.  “My Councilors told me you bargained for something with her and sent Sif to retrieve it.  I was most pleased to learn she still lives.”  Thor took in a deep breath, fought back grief at the knowledge that he had lost the rest of his close companions, and brought his attention back to the matter at hand.  “What is Sif bringing to us?”

“A máttur magnari.”  Loki gave him a smug look.

“That will be of much use to us, brother,” Thor said, impressed.  In the matter of magical artifacts, even he knew this was a prize.  With it, Loki would be able to magnify the power of any of his spells many times over.

Loki gave him a crooked smile.  “And here I thought you never paid attention to magickal matters.”

“I’m not as ignorant as you always think I am,” Thor protested, stung.  Loki gave him a fond smile, and something in Thor eased.  He’d expected the usual eyeroll or smirk.  “What are you going to do with it?”

“Manipulating light to make myself or others or objects invisible to the eye is a simple matter.  For larger things – such as this ship – that is beyond my power.  But not with a máttur magnari in my hands.  With it, I could protect this ship from the sight of all, until we are able to send it and our people to wherever you think they can land safely.”

“And then what do we do?”

“Then, brother, we find the other Infinity Stones and rid the universe of the one we spoke of.”

“What did you give Karnilla in return?”

“The _Tafla af lífi_.”  At Thor’s frown, he added, “Oh, don‘t worry.  It will extend her lifespan a few centuries, but it is far from the guarantee of immortality it is claimed to be.  Mortals might think otherwise; adding several thousand years to their lifespan would seem as immortality to them.  Some say it has other powers, but those, like Mjolnir, are related to worth.  Best of all, the spell on it is not of my doing, so she cannot turn it against me.”

Thor knew one of the fabled powers of the _Tafla af lífi_ was near omnipotence.  He started to say, _are you sure?_ and decided he did not need to question everything Loki said.  “How long do you think it’s going to take before she figures that out?”

“She already knows.  But she thinks that I don’t know that she knows.  And she thinks she can break the spell and make herself worthy.”  A sly smile touched Loki’s lips.

“Can she?”

Loki grinned.  “Doubtful.  No more than I could ever wield Mjolnir.  That type of spellcasting is intricate and powerful, and Karnilla, much as she fancies herself more powerful than any, could never wield Mjolnir.”

“What if she seeks to deceive you and doesn’t send the máttur magnari after all?”

“When I touch it, if it is not what I bartered for, the _Tafla af lífi_ will turn against her and steal years from her life.”

Thor could see there were layers upon layers of potential danger here with two sorcerers attempting to best each other in their bargaining, but this was not a battle he could fight.  “All right.  Since there are only four Infinity Stones left, do they pose as much danger?”

Loki blinked.  “Thor, there are six Stones.”

“The Tesseract and the Aether were on Asgard.  They would have been destroyed in the explosion.”  He still found those words hard to say.

Loki sighed and this time he did roll his eyes.  Thor felt a thread of the irritation he always felt when Loki made that face.  “Thor,” Loki said in his best long-suffering tone, “they are singularities.  They were present at the founding of the universe.  They cannot be destroyed.  What?” he said at Thor’s expression, “Did you expect me to just let the Tesseract float around in the rubble for anyone to pick up?”

Thor took a second to absorb that.  “Do you have them here?”  He took a quick glance around the room as if he expected to find them inside the liquor cabinet, then fixed Loki with a questioning stare when he realized what had gone unmentioned.  “What about the Aether?”

“Some time ago I sent the Aether to Knowhere, to The Collector.”  Thor opened his mouth to question him, but Loki kept talking, “I took the Tesseract from the Vault – and several other relics as well – before placing Surtur’s Crown in the Eternal Flame.”

“Where is the Tesseract now?”  

“I have it, and all the other relics, hidden in a pocket dimension, shielded from the vision of all.  I do not think even Heimdall could see it.”

Thor was thinking. “Could you not use the Tesseract to send all of us to a safe haven?”

“And leave a blazing trail across the cosmos for anyone to see?  No, Thor.  The Tesseract must remain hidden for now, but if the rumor about that new weapon is true, there is another way to achieve that goal.  And we will find it on Nidavellir.”

“Why did you sent the Aether to The Collector?  He is no ally of ours.” Not for the first time, Thor doubted his ability to ever follow the workings of Loki’s mind.  But it was more than obvious that Loki had been following a complex plan of his own for some time.

“Or of anyone,” Loki replied.  “I sent it away because two Infinity Stones in close proximity form a resonance with each other; a signal to the universe many times more powerful than one stone on its own.  I could not allow their proximity to continue.  I had warded Asgard with the most powerful magicks I am capable of to weaken the Tesseract’s signal so fewer could detect her and pinpoint her location.” 

“Eir and my Councilors told me you had been doing magickal workings in Asgard’s heart, away from the sight of any.”

“Yes, Eir told me you had asked of my doings on Asgard before you came back.  I had not been as idle as you first supposed,” Loki said snidely.  “It was not all eating grapes and lying about in Odin’s bathrobe.” 

“Or writing plays,” Thor commented.

“Better the people did not know the dangers we faced.  And I had to have some fun.”  Loki gave him a cheeky grin.

Thor gave him an indulgent smile.  “I would see the thing entire, some day.”

“If we make it through this,” Loki said slowly, fear clearly seizing him again, “then see it you shall.”

“I asked Eir and the Councilors what it was you were trying to accomplish on Asgard, but though they had some guesses, none of them truly knew.”

“I was working to make Asgard safe.  To cast about it and within it and throughout it every layer of magickal protection I could.  I built barrier upon barrier to protect us all.  Until… I thought myself safe.  That we were safe.  Safe enough.  But now.”  Despair flashed across his face.  He squeezed his eyes shut, opened them again.  “Here we are in this defenseless ship.  We could be struck down with one blow, and all my sorcery and all your power could not prevent it.”

“We must act, brother!” Thor said urgently.

“We are.  Once we see the possible futures ahead of us we can decide on the steps to take.”

Reassured, remembering that the last time a Nine-Circle was held it had led to their success on Harokin, Thor seized upon something Loki had said.  “Why do you call the Tesseract ‘her’?”

Loki looked surprised, then said, “They are sentient, in their own way.  They have will and desire.  But they are very, very patient.  Eons are nothing to them.”

“If that is so,” Thor said slowly, “How do you know their will and desire will align with ours?  Or _his_.”

“You have seen for yourself they are willing to be used.  And I have one advantage _he_ does not.  I have held three of the Six,” Loki said, “and I have made my mind and magic known to them.  For in addition to will and desire, they want to be _known._   Not just simply used.  For those who can see their hearts, they offer limitless knowledge.”

The room seemed suddenly airless.  Thor felt his skin crawl.  “The Stones speak to you.  What do they say, Brother?”Thor couldn’t keep alarm out of his voice – fear that their power could overwhelm and destroy his brother forever.  “Even a sorcerer as powerful as you – could you not lose yourself to them?”

Loki’s eyes narrowed.  “You still doubt me.”

“Brother.  I felt the power of the Aether.”

Loki’s expression cleared of anger, but remained somber. “As I recall, you won.  There is still light in the universe, is there not?”  When Thor opened his mouth to speak again, he raised one hand.  “For many days after I took the throne I spent time with the Aether before I sent her away, and for the years after that I spent much time with the Tesseract.  Have you noticed that much difference in me?”  He gave Thor a wickedly provocative grin.

Thor shook his head, bemused.  “You are still the same trickster you have always been.”

Loki’s smiled in satisfaction.  “As for your worries,” he went on calmly.  “There is a power imbalance between Mind and myself.  I will not seek it again, unless necessary.  However, your android creature is pure and worthy and incorruptible.”  His mouth twisted a bit as he uttered those words.  “It is true that Reality enjoys change, and is happy to possess those who can effect great change.  She poses great danger – even more so than Time, which moves on set pathways, as Reality can unmake events entirely and force all the universe into entirely new pathways.  That is one reason why I sent her to The Collector.  He desires to possess, he is greedy to own, but he cares not to use.  He sealed her away in stasis from all eyes save his own.  And mine,” Loki added with the ghost of a pleased smile. “As for the Tesseract, she rests now, eternally patient.”

“I worry for you, brother,” Thor said, and whatever Loki saw in his face inspired him to move closer.

“I know.  But I fought for Asgard, not just now, but before your arrival.  I am here.  I will stay.”  Loki’s voice was straightforward, free of pretense.  “And you do not need to ask me this for I will so swear it:  I will not betray you.”  His expression was intent, sincere, but his gaze shifted downward momentarily, and Thor suddenly realized Loki didn’t expect him to believe him.

“I do not ask you to swear to what I already know,” Thor said, holding Loki’s gaze, willing him to believe him.  “Let the past be the past.  You came for us.  You rescued us.  You returned to me.” Thor felt tension leave him as Loki’s expression changed to one of surprise.  And then one of belief.

For a moment he saw it all again:  those last minutes on Asgard.  Loki’s fierce grin as he brought down the lightning on Hela.  _We were raised together.  We played together.  We fought together._ It was in that moment Thor knew all was well between them again.  It was in that moment Thor knew they could win. 

A shadow of that fierce grin touched Loki’s lips.  “I need to win this war.”  Loki stressed each word, his voice and gaze intense. “For Asgard, for you, for myself.  Because I will never be free otherwise.  And you know above everything, Thor – I value my freedom.”

“Will you not tell me more, brother?  Of what happened to you when – ”

Loki twisted his hands together, a flash of pain crossing his face.  Thor raised his hands placatingly.  Loki squared his shoulders.  “Thor.  I do not wish to speak of this now.  I will tell you all.  Soon.  But it is not an easy thing to remember, much less speak of, and I would rather look forward, not back.  You cannot win a new war by fighting an old one.”

“Agreed,” Thor said grimly.  “You will not be alone.  I will fight this war with you and together we will win it,” he said, his voice as strong and confident as if he were already at the head of a vast army, certain as always of eventual victory.  The very survival of the remnants of his people, and so much more, depended on them.

Loki kept his gaze.  Then something in him relaxed by a mere fraction.  He managed a smile.  Then a grin.  “After all, who would dare think they could win against the mighty Thor?” 

Thor laughed, and slapped his shoulder.  “Brother.  You were always at my side at my greatest victories.  I would never have won those battles without you.”  He savored the look of gratification on Loki’s face.  “We will win this war together.”

“Yes, brother.  We will.”  But there was still a shadow in Loki’s eyes, a warning not to underestimate the magnitude of the task.   

For a moment the vision was present again in his mind:  the six singularities, their colors scattered across a galaxy-wide starfield, inconceivably ancient, powerful beyond anything he could imagine.  

Here they were, the last of Asgard’s people vulnerable in this undefended ship.  Thor knew it full well:  they would need every bit of Loki’s sorcery and genius, every bit of his own strength and leadership, and all the power of their people to overcome what lay ahead. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Re Infinity Stones: My theory is they demonstrate some kind of sentience. When I first saw “Captain America: The First Avenger”, I was puzzled by the scene in which the Tesseract opened a rift, apparently of its own volition, during the scene where the Red Skull appears to die. In “The Avengers”, Loki and Selvig are awed by the knowledge and “truth” the Tesseract is giving them. Barton is also getting a message from the Tesseract; a practical one, as suits his character. And, as we learned in “Infinity War”, the Soul Stone requires sacrifice. 
> 
> Other notes: We saw in “Thor” there were a number of relics in Odin’s Vault, one of which is The Tablet of Life and Time, which was supposed to give its user immortality and near omnipotence. I google-translated part of the name into Icelandic (Tafla af lífi) and dialed down its powers a bit.
> 
> The máttur magnari (“power amplifier” google-translated into Icelandic) is something I made up when I couldn’t find anything in Odin’s Vault or Marvel comic book canon to suit what I needed.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for taking so long to update. Back in March when I first started writing “On Yggdrasil’s Branches” it was intended to be a sequel to “Thor: Ragnarok”, a place for me to explore various headcanons while Thor, Loki, and the refugee Asgardians made their way to Midgard. I thought it would be 20,000 words tops and finished by June. Because of that I felt free to sign up for this year’s Marvel Big Bang.  
> Then “Infinity War” happened, and this story morphed into an IW AU Fix-It fic. It was very clear to me it would be much, much longer.  
> I originally hoped I could work on both stories concurrently, but that proved not to be the case. I posted my Big Bang Thorki story, “The Sound of Breaking Ice”, several days ago, and I’m back working on “On Yggdrasil’s Branches”.  
> Comments welcome.

Bruce drew in a deep breath.  Released it.  Opened his eyes.

Here he was, alone, seated in a lotus position on the metal floor of a narrow rectangular room in an alien space craft.

An alien spacecraft.  After being on an alien planet.  And another alien planet before that, full of fans of the Hulk.

He was still trying to take that in.

At least he finally felt calm.  Yoga exercises and meditation had helped.  So had a shower, once Hulda, the young woman assigned to be his – keeper, he supposed – showed him how to use the bathroom equipment.  He had a short nap in a real bed, one of a triple layer of narrow bunks attached to one wall with three additional bunks attached to the opposite wall.  The room was intended as a medical ward, he guessed.  He didn’t have any roommates, and he supposed that was on purpose.

He wasn’t sure how much time had gone by.  Long enough to get hungry again.  He got up, put on the same garish orange-and-purple robe he’d been previously wearing, and went into the other room.

Hulda got up from where she’d been seated, some kind of three dimensional display still hovering in the air in front of her chair.  She was about his height.  Her frizzy brown hair was parted in the middle and fell down her back.  She was wearing a layered gown, mostly brown with some gold embroidery at the neckline and on the sleeves.  She seemed very young, like a human girl in her late teens.  It was more than her unlined face; the few Asgardians he had seen so far seemed mostly of the same age.  It was more in her expression, a slight unsureness, a trace of insecurity, a hint of bravado.

He took in the room at a glance, seeing tables, chairs, and gurneys arranged around the sides of the room, along with shelves full of alien equipment whose purpose he couldn’t even guess at.  It was the same large room he’d been taken to yesterday when he’d emerged from the room he’d first woken up in and startled the people in the corridor outside.   This room had been full of people then, but now, with just him and Hulda, it seemed larger than it had first appeared.  There was a large door in one wall that he assumed was the main entrance, and two or more doors in the remaining walls. 

He stepped closer to the display Hulda had been watching to get a better look.  It appeared to be multicolored multiple images of a human – or Asgardian – body, he supposed, each image interlaid on top of another.  But instead of showing layers of epidermis, dermis, musculature, nerve and blood vessel structure, organs, and skeleton, each image showed different energy patterns.   “What’s that?” he asked, hoping he’d get the opportunity to take a closer look at the technology.

“My studies.” Her tone did not invite further questions.  “Do you need anything?”

“Some food would be good,” he said, still looking at the display.  “What are you reading?”

She took half a second too long before answering, “How the physical body interacts with the astral one, and the best methods of healing both physical and psychic wounds.”

“Medicine, then,” he said, ignoring the magickal terminology.  He’d gotten used to just about anything now. 

“Yes.”  The one word and the impatient tone in her voice didn’t invite any more conversation, but as always when he woke up in a strange place he needed to know more about where he was and the people he was with before he could figure out what to do next.

These were Thor’s people, their technology much further advanced than what they had on earth, so she probably viewed having a conversation with him on technical matters the same way he viewed anyone who couldn’t discuss nuclear physics asking him to explain the subject in five minutes or less.  But her opinion didn’t matter to him; he needed more information.  “I’d be interested in learning more.  I’m a doctor, on earth – ” (among other things, but he decided he’d just start there) “ – I realize we’re nowhere near as advanced as you are, but I’d be interested in learning the basics about what you’re reading.”

Now she was looking at him as if she’d seen a dog start talking.  “Are you – sure?”

He felt slightly nettled at that – having someone question his intelligence was something he wasn’t used to.  “Yes.  We’ve made great strides in learning about the physical body, but I’m not sure what you mean about the astral body.  Mind?  Soul?”

Her expression had shifted again, and he didn’t mistake the look of condescension, like that of a teenager deciding all adults were stupid and useless.  She quickly rattled off a complicated information dump without pausing to take a breath, which he followed without any trouble.  He was determined to set aside any preconceptions, because hey, here was a chance to learn something from an advanced culture.  She ended with, “You said you wanted food.”  And she was up and gone before he had the chance to say anything further.

Shaking his head, he sat down at a table positioned at the side of the room and waited.

She was back in no time with a tray.  She set dishes out and then settled herself at the opposite end of the room in an obvious attempt to avoid conversation.  The display reappeared before her in her new location.

He shrugged, uncovered the dishes, and began eating – this time it was some kind of stew with spiced crackers – but kept an eye on her.  As soon as she started looking at her display again, he said, “So the connections of the astral to the physical resemble a web rather than just a few set points, or just one,” he said, remembering some religious beliefs he’d run across at some point which posited the pineal gland was the connector between mind and spirit.

She looked up, annoyed.  “Yes,” she said, in the manner of one stating the obvious. 

He grinned.  “I suppose, as someone from earth, I’m not supposed to understand anything more complex than, say, how a catapult operates.”  She frowned, looking exactly like a sulky teenager which, Bruce decided, she probably was.

He took a couple more bites of the food she’d brought and smiled at her annoyed look.  Hulda opened her mouth to make a retort, then another door opened and out came Valkyrie, glowering ferociously and looking definitely the worse for wear. 

Hulda leapt to her feet.  “Eir left me a potion for you to drink as soon as you rose.” She waved her hand in front of a blank wall and a drawer slid open.  Hulda took out a small vial filled with a sludgy mustard-yellow concoction whose look made Bruce queasy.

Not bothering to ask questions Valkyrie grabbed it and drank it in one long swallow.  Then she looked around and spotted Bruce.  A hint of a smile touched her lips and she crossed the room and settled down at the table.  She was already looking better.  Fast working stuff, whatever it was.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey, yourself,” he replied, smiling back.  He needed to know why he felt so comfortable with her – particularly because earlier he’d woken up next to her. 

It had seemed like a dream at first – but now that he’d had a chance to recover, the memory had come back to him clearly.   She’d been sound asleep, and he’d stared at her for a long moment, startled into disbelief.  This was the first time he’d ever woken up next to anyone since before the accident. He’d been naked, as always, while, thankfully, she had been fully clothed.  He really doubted anything had happened between them – but that hadn’t really reassured him.  Because who would willingly go to sleep next to the Other Guy?

She investigated the dishes on the table, then helped herself to some of the crackers and the rest of the stew and began eating rapidly. 

“What’s your name?” Bruce asked.  She stopped mid-bite, and he hastened to add, “It’s not like we’ve had any chance to talk, and I can’t keep calling you Valkyrie.  Can I?  I thought that was a, um, profession, not a name.  But maybe I’m just thinking of Earth legends.”

She swallowed and dug another cracker into the stew.  “Midgard has tales of us?” she asked, surprised. 

“Oh yes.  Of Thor and Loki too.”

She shook her head.  “Amazing the tales linger, what with your short lifespans.  I haven’t been there in 1,500 years.”  She studied him again.  “I can’t believe you and the Hulk are the same being.  That is some very powerful sorcery.”

“It was an accident.  An experiment gone wrong.”  Bruce really did not want to talk about this, and something in his expression obviously cued her in.

She raised her eyebrows but kept on eating.  “Brunnhilde,” she said finally.

“What?”

“My name,” she said with a touch of impatience.  “Brunnhilde.”

“Like the opera?”  It was out before he could call it back.

She frowned, puzzling that out.  “Poetry, such as the bards sing?”   She shook her head and scraped out the last bit of the stew.  “I want to hear some of the stories about Thor and Loki.  Not about – us.”

“Some of them are quite – ” Bruce hunted for a word, “ – improbable.”

Brunnhilde grinned.  “Tell me one.”

Bruce hesitated.  Tony had already tried out a lot of these stories on Thor, leading with the story of the Þrymskviða.  Thor had just laughed at foolish mortal stories, and said no one had ever stolen Mjolnir, much less a giant, so there would have been no need for him to dress up as Freyja to retrieve it.  Remembering the look Loki had given him earlier in the day – not to mention the way he’d behaved in Brunnhilde’s chamber on Sakaar, smirking and taunting despite being wrapped in chains – Bruce considered asking about Sleipnir.   So many weird stories to choose from.  How much was true?

Then all three of them started at the sound of a baby crying.  Bruce saw Hulda glancing at one of the several doors in the room.  When she saw Bruce looking at her she turned her attention back to the display she was studying.

Bruce looked at Brunnhilde.  She shrugged.  “Well?”

“Is it true you have cats as large as horses?”

“Yes,” Brunnhilde said.  Hulda snickered, but when Bruce glanced in her direction she was apparently entirely focused on her studies.

“OK,” he said.  “And does Thor have a chariot drawn by goats?”

“I wouldn’t know.  I – left Asgard before he was born.”

“Oh.”  He considered that, wondering exactly how old she was anyway.  He decided to table that question for later, as he’d really like to find out more about the biology behind their incredible lifespans and their amazing strength and durability, but he didn’t want to go deep into that subject now.  Not when he wanted to find more about Brunnhilde; not when he felt he’d finally found a best friend, someone he felt completely comfortable with despite knowing nothing about her, and without having any idea as to why he felt this way.   “Well, there’s this one about Odin and how he lost his eye – ”

“I don’t want to hear about Odin,” she snapped, and her expression made the hair rise on his neck.  He could feel the Other Guy shifting just beneath the surface, and took several deep breaths, filling his mind with calming images.

Her expression changed to one of concern.  “Hey,” she said.  “Are you all right?”

He took in a deep breath.  “I need to stay calm,” he said, and focused on his breathing for another moment.

She studied him closely.  “Tell me a story that doesn’t involve Odin.”

He decided immediately to choose one that didn’t involve either Thor or Loki because stirring up trouble at this point might cause something to rile the Other Guy, and that’s the last thing they needed inside a spaceship.  He began the story about Signy and Sigmund.  She nodded at some points, rolled her eyes at others.  He smiled to see Hulda surreptitiously listening.

He was only halfway through when another door opened and an older dark-haired woman with an authoritative air entered and took the room in at a glance.  He recognized her as Eir, whom he’d seen when he’d been brought to this room and who was apparently in charge of this medical facility.  Through the still-open doorway behind her he caught a glimpse of a woman talking to someone else, but whatever they were saying was drowned out by a baby’s wails.

The door slid shut.  Eir nodded to Bruce and Brunnhilde, then stopped in front of Hulda.  “Fulla has had her child, a girl,” she said. 

Hulda brightened and glanced toward the door Eir had just emerged from, then a pensive look crossed her face.  “Daughter of no realm,” she said, almost in a whisper.

“Daughter of Asgard,” Eir firmly corrected her.  “Daughter of the New Asgard, whatever that will be.  Whatever we make of it.”  Eir stopped to consider Bruce, then stepped past Hulda to the wall and opened a panel with a hand gesture.  She removed another vial, this one a shifting green in color, that looked it held vapor rather than liquid.

Then she moved to where Bruce and Brunnhilde were seated.  Brunnhilde gave her a long glance out of narrowed eyes, but said nothing.  Eir met her gaze for a moment, then turned her attention to Bruce. 

“Thor has requested that I create a potion for you that will have the same calming effect as a Midgardian herb he says you enjoy smoking.”

His eyes widened.  “All… right,” he said slowly.

She handed him the green vial without preamble.  It came complete with a silvery chain.  “If you feel the need, open this and inhale the vapor.  One breath should suffice, but more should be safe for you.

He stared down at the vial, bemused, and then hung it around his neck.  Sure, he’d give it a try.  If putting a gun in his mouth and pulling the trigger couldn’t kill him, he doubted some strange alien vapor would have any harmful effect. 

“If you would not mind, I would like to examine you.  I am most interested in your shapeshifting abilities.”

“It’s not that, precisely.  Do I need to get undressed?” he asked uncertainly, not sure why he was hesitating since probably half of earth had seen his naked body by now; the internet was full of images of him reverting back into human form. 

“No.  But if you would stand over here, I can create the whole image.”

Intensely curious, he moved to stand in the empty center of the room.  He was very aware that both Brunnhilde and Hulda were watching them with great interest.  “Now what?”

“Just stand,” she said, her voice clinical, disinterested.

He stood, and watched as she made several hand gestures and intoned a string of words.  He started when her hands glowed green.  Then the green glow enveloped his body, instantly reminding him that it was close in shade to the color of the Other Guy. 

Too close.  His heart began beating rapidly.

Eir paused and looked at him with concern.  “Inhale the vapor,” she ordered.

He didn’t hesitate.  He grasped the smooth cool vial, and before he had a chance to wonder how to open it, the top vanished at his touch.  He inhaled deeply, something cool and bitter-smelling that tingled down his throat and into his lungs and then through every part of his body. 

Almost immediately, he began feeling calm.  He realized he’d squeezed his eyes shut.  He opened them again and met her assessing gaze.  “Thanks,” he said, lowering the vial until it dangled from its chain again.  He was unsurprised to discover it had somehow restoppered itself and seemed just as full as it had been before.  He frowned.  “I guess there’s some reason I didn’t have to do anything to open it?”

“There are some warriors among us who go into battle frenzy and cannot come out of it without the help of this vapor.  This way, there is no need to take the time to open a container.  When Thor described your need to remain calm I adapted this formula.”  She studied him for a moment longer, then nodded.  “Stay still,” she said, and turned her focus to the empty air between them.  She made a complicated hand gesture, another, and an image began forming between them.

He started, surprised, as the image became clear.  It was a smaller, naked version of him.  Then all recognizable features disappeared, and instead the body seemed composed entirely of light, that shifted into various colorful images similar to Hulda’s display.  He watched, fascinated, as the energy patterns shifted, glowed, vanished, reformed in entirely different patterns, ending in a very specific, very familiar shade of green.  Then the image grew, enlarging rapidly while still retaining the ghost of his body until it was entirely enclosed by the much larger outline of the Hulk.

He shuddered, but managed to stay calm; either Eir’s potion or his own curiosity keeping him focused enough to see an entire range of energy patterns shift through the outline of both his and the Hulk’s body.  Then his own body vanished, leaving the image of the Hulk, which went through a different set of images examining the energy structure of that giant body. 

Then, abruptly, everything vanished.  Eir was looking at him with the expression of a scientist presented with a fascinating new specimen.

He didn’t mind.  He was very familiar with that feeling.  “I want to know more,” he said.  “I need to know what all that signifies.  Each overlay, each image.  You’re depicting pure energy as emanated by a biological structure.  Does this mean that – ”  He couldn’t stop talking, insight after insight sparking connection after connection in his mind.

He stopped as Eir stared at him with a faintly scandalized expression, though one devoid of Hulda’s condescension.

Once again slightly insulted, he pointed out, “I realize our legends about your people are centuries old.  Except for Thor and Loki, have any of you been on earth recently?  Because we’ve learned a thing or two in the last thousand years about science.”

“I was last on your realm a thousand years ago, at the time the Jotnar invaded your world, directing the healing of the wounded.” 

“Wait, what?  **_Who_** invaded us?”  Bruce wanted to know more about that, but Eir kept talking, “I do know from Jane Foster that what you call science has advanced considerably since I was last on your realm.  A very intelligent woman; she made me rethink Midgardian capabilities.”

“Yes, Jane told me about her trip to Asgard.  We’ve worked together on several projects.  I’m a scientist, though in a different specialty that hers.  Specialties,” he added.  Hulda blushed bright red.  Baffled, Bruce went on, “Why the two of you are acting as if I’m some kind of freak?  Not,” he admitted hastily, “that I’m not.  But the Other Guy aside, Hulda here acts as if she’s surprised I even know how to read.  Since you know Jane, I would think… ”  He trailed off as Eir glanced at Hulda, both of them looking distinctly uncomfortable. 

Brunnhilde snickered.

Bruce turned to her.  “What’s so funny?”  He frowned at her.  “Why are the two of them acting so weird because I want to know these things if it’s not because I’m some ignorant hick from a backwater planet?”

Brunnhilde looked amused.  “It’s because you’re a man.”

“What?” He glanced at Hulda, who looked away, and Eir, who met his gaze.

His mind was moving at lightning speed.  “Professions based on gender roles?” he guessed. 

“That is correct,” Eir said levelly.  Hulda was still looking shocked.

Brunnhilde had stretched back in her chair and was grinning.  “Most Asgardians don’t get out much.  They think everything has been ordained from the beginning, and that whatever Odin’s father’s father’s father decreed is good enough for them.  Isn’t that right, Eir?  Care to explain it to him?”

“Magick has always been reserved to women.”  Eir’s voice was even, and whatever discomfort she’d shown before had disappeared beneath a professional veneer.

“Is there any particular reason why?” Bruce had to ask, though he was certain he could predict the answer. 

And sure enough, Hulda came through.  “That’s the way it’s always been.”  Hulda glanced uncomfortably at Brunnhilde, who looked like she was really enjoying herself.

“Men are warriors or specific artisans – armorers and the like,” Eir explained.  Grief flashed across her face and for an instant she squeezed her eyes shut.  Hulda, too, looked stricken, and Bruce remembered he’d heard a snatch of conversation in the hallways about the catastrophic losses they’d suffered on Asgard.  There was so much he needed to ask about, so much he did not know.  They hadn’t made it back in time, after all.  And somehow, Loki was responsible for their rescue.

Now was not the time or place to ask these questions.  Eir had recovered her composure and went on, “Men are not considered to have the same level of intelligence, much less the potential to have the ability to develop the skills needed in magickal matters.”

Bruce guessed he now knew exactly how Jane felt, remembering with some discomfort stories she’d told him about her reception by her male peers in astrophysics.  He thought he’d been sympathetic enough, but with all eyes on him he suddenly began to have an inkling as to what she had been through.  “It’s – historically been the opposite on Earth.”

Hulda gasped out loud.  “Are all of you ergi?” 

Still leaning lazily in her chair, Brunnhilde rolled her eyes. 

Bruce’s eyes widened at the implication of that word – and just how could one spoken word suddenly enter his mind with a dozen pejorative meanings, one explicitly homophobic?  Another thing he needed to know more about.  He was suddenly hyperaware of the weight of their gaze, and had to push back against another surge of anger.  “But what about Loki?” he asked, and the room fell dead silent.  Hulda shifted uncomfortably, and Bruce filled the silence, “He’s clearly good at what he does.  I reviewed all the footage of him and I couldn’t even begin to guess how he was able to create illusions.”

Brunnhilde leaned forward, exactly as if she were watching a very entertaining show.  “Yes, what about Loki?  How did Odin feel about his sorcerer son?”

“One does not gossip about the royal family,” Eir said firmly, but Bruce heard an edge in her voice that convinced him she hated parroting rules of etiquette.  She glanced toward Hulda, and for a moment Bruce imagined her uttering that classic ‘do as I say, not as I do’ parent line.

Brunnhilde guffawed, slapping her side.  “Tell me another one, Eir.” 

Eir’s expression slipped into one of annoyance before she resumed an attitude of detachment. 

Brunnhilde turned to Bruce.  “Most men who practice sorcery hide their interests from the public.  But not Loki, I take it.” 

Hulda suddenly spoke up.  “People did gossip about him before, but most everyone changed their minds about him after they saw his play.  Anyway, it’s different for Jotnar.  And, I guess, Midgardians,” she added reluctantly.

“What do you mean by ‘it’s different for Jotnar’?”  Brunnhilde stared at Hulda who just looked puzzled.

“What is ‘Jotnar’?” Bruce asked.

Eir spoke up.  “Those who dwell on Jotunheim, another realm in the Nine.  We fought a war with them, many years ago.  Loki is not Asgardian, but rather the son of their King, Laufey.”

“What?!?  How did **_that_** happen?” Brunnhilde demanded.  “Last time I was there I had drinks with King Laufey.  About 1800 years ago.  He didn’t have any kids then.  Speaking of drinks, is there any mead here?  Ale?  Anything else?”

“No,” Eir said forbiddingly, with a look designed to quell any kind of backtalk.

Brunnhilde didn’t look the least bit impressed.  “So Lackey is a Jotunn,” she mused.  “I would never have guessed.  For one thing, he’s way too short.  And not blue.  Why does he look Asgardian then?”

“What do you mean by ‘not blue’ and ‘short’?” Bruce demanded.

Hulda opened her mouth.  “Well, in Loki’s play – ”

Eir cut her off and Hulda subsided into sulky silence.  “After Odin stopped their invasion of Midgard he took the war to Jotunheim itself.  Odin found Loki as a baby in the ruins of one of their buildings in Utgard.  He recognized him immediately as Laufey’s son and took him back to Asgard.”

Brunnhilde made an amused noise.  “I bet that went over well, Odin raising a Jotunn as his son.”

“Odin didn’t tell anyone.”  A pained look crossed Eir’s face.

Brunnhilde shook her head in disbelief.  “Typical of Odin.  Did he cast a spell on him then to make him look Asgardian?”

“No,” Eir said, and when Hulda opened her mouth, cut in again, “Loki may well be the most powerful sorcerer in all the Nine.” She clenched her jaw.  “I served Odin well and truthfully, and just as truthfully I can tell you this: he did not know what he let slip through his hands.  When he first brought this Jotnar child to me, and told me how he had changed his shape from Jotnar to Asgardian of his own accord, I told him what he held in his hands.  He knew Loki’s potential.  I thought he would value the child more.”  Hulda was watching her intently, fascinated, eager to learn more.

Brunnhilde’s mouth twisted in a bitter grimace.  “Odin did not value much, it seems.”

“Well, Thor did say Loki was adopted,” Bruce commented and Eir gave him an interested look.  “Maybe you could start from the beginning because I don’t understand any of this.”

“You’re not alone in that,” Brunnhilde said.  She leaned back, watching Eir assessingly, and said in a knife-edged tone.  “Do you remember me, oh Mistress of the Healing Arts?”

“Of course I do.”  Eir returned Brunnhilde’s hostile stare with a measured one of her own. “You were precocious and wildly talented; far above most other women who aspired to the Valkyrir.  That is why you were chosen.”

“And do you know what happened to us?” She leaned forward, jaw set, eyes going wild.

“No one does,” Eir said.  “But with Loki’s help, we will find out why.”

A spasm of pain crossed Brunnhilde’s face.  “If Loki’s help is all I have to rely on to learn the truth, that’s never going to happen.”

“I want to know more about all of this,” Bruce said, nearly overwhelmed by this confusing mass of information, trying to figure out what to ask first.  “What’s this about a play?”

“At that time I thought it overlong and melodramatic, fabulist and self-serving,” Eir commented.  Hulda looked like she wanted to protest.  Eir continued, “My opinion hasn’t changed, despite the change in perceived authorship.”

Bruce felt a trace of impatience, wanting her to get to the point.  “What was it about?” 

“Loki telling himself what he wanted to believe.” Eir’s tone suddenly gentled.

“And what was that?”

Eir hesitated for a moment.  “He wanted to believe his father loved him.” 

Those words hit Bruce in the gut.  He squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to think of the coarse and violent man who had been his father, who had killed his mother right before him –

His heart began racing again.  But Eir hadn’t stopped speaking, and he forced himself to concentrate on her words.  “And so Odin did, in his own way.  Or so I believed then.  Now, everything about Odin is in doubt.”

Brunnhilde shook her head.  She was looking twitchy, and Bruce, taking in deep slow breaths, his hand hovering near the vapor-filled vial, looked at her in concern.  There was an uncomfortable silence.

Bruce forced himself to focus.  He still had a lot of questions, and the more he learned now, the better.  “Why did the Jotnar invade Midgard?”

“Yeah, why?” Brunnhilde asked. 

“Why do men ever fight wars?” Eir retorted.  “Territory, this time.  Midgard is at a spatial crossroads, the very center of the Nine, and the fact that its inhabitants are primitive can be seen as an advantage, easy to conquer and subdue.  There are others who have tried, over the millennia.”

Bruce wanted to feel insulted, but he had to admit that, given the state of earth cultures a thousand years ago, she had a point.  But the implications for earth were still terrifying.  He’d gone along with Tony’s plan to create global protection for the earth for that very reason.  And look at how well that had gone.

“Utgard was a beautiful place,” Valkyrie commented.  “A shining ice city, truly magnificent.  Why would Laufey abandon a son?” 

“Loki is Aesir-sized, not Jotnar, and Laufey didn’t want a runt and abandoned him to die,” Hulda burst out.  “And Utgard was destroyed in the war.  King Odin took away their Casket and rescued their prince.” 

Everyone stared at her.

Brunnhilde just shook her head.  “I need a drink.”

The main door to the room opened and three women entered, catching everyone’s attention.  Eir turned immediately. 

“We are ready,” said the dark-skinned dreadlocked woman in the middle. 

Curious, Bruce looked them over.  One looked somewhat Asian, with long straight black hair done in two braids; the third was blonde, her hair also braided, with intense blue eyes.  All three were tall, their faces calm and composed, their eyes seemingly glowing.  Bruce squinted, trying to figure out if that was a trick of the light, but the illusion didn’t shift.  They radiated strength and authority and a profound sense of power.  Though they looked nothing alike, together they formed an absolute unity.  The sense of unity went beyond the clothing they wore – layered garments so intensely richly black it was like staring into starless space – it was almost as if they were bound together by invisible ties.

Eir turned to Bruce.  “Please.  Stay here.  I will return, or send someone to you who can answer more of your questions.”  She glanced at Brunnhilde, who gave her a mocking smile, then turned and left with the three women without saying another word.

“Who are they?” Bruce asked.

“The spaekona,” Hulda replied.  She seemed less talkative now that she was alone with them again.

Bruce blinked as the word translated itself into English.  “Witches?” he asked, but that wasn’t quite right.  “Prophets?  Psychics?”   That earned him another eyeroll from Hulda, something that was beginning to piss him off.  He took a deep breath.  “Like Loki?”

“Not quite.”  Hulda settled herself down with her display again.

Bruce began to tease out the edges of the meanings.  “Loki is a, what, sorcerer?  Wizard?”

“Seiðmann,” she said shortly, and there it was again, one word conveying the sense of someone – someone male – magickally powerful and simultaneously outcast.

Bruce had a sudden sense of what it would be like to be passionate about science, but to be viewed as shameful for even having that interest, much less pursuing it openly.  He tried to imagine what it would be like, to be viewed as something lesser because he was interested in the life of the mind, in the excitement of discovery; what it would be like to be willing to accept that level of prejudice, to have to fight for the right to do the things he most wanted to do.

His image of Loki suddenly reset in his mind. 

He didn’t know when he’d see Loki again – probably soon.  But when he did, he wouldn’t be able to avoid seeing him in a different light.  Not that any of this excused what Loki had done.   But Bruce had a feeling there was a lot more to this particular story.

Brunnhilde was looking at him curiously.  “Don’t they have witches on Midgard?” 

“Well, yes,” he said with a shudder, thinking of how that auburn-haired woman had violated his mind and triggered the Other Guy. 

His life had vanished for two years.  The last thing he remembered had been waiting for the team outside Johannesburg.  What had happened after that woman had confronted him was one more thing he needed to ask Thor.  He sucked in a deep breath, and distracted himself by looking at the door Eir and the three women had gone through.  “What are they doing?”

Brunnhilde was picking through the items on the table.  “Don’t know, don’t care.”  She found a stray cracker, ate it, got up and headed toward the door.

Bruce called after her.  “Wait!”

She turned and looked at him questioningly. 

“I was hoping you could tell me more about the Hulk and what he’s been doing all this time on your planet.”

“Not my planet.”  She sounded flippant, but sat down again at the table. But then her gaze darkened.  “Don’t you remember anything?”

He shook his head.  “I never do.”

She sat back, her eyes looking a little lost.  “…What do you want to know?” she said after a long pause.

“I take it the Other Guy – the Hulk – was pretty popular there.  Gladiator games, am I correct?  How did that happen?”

She smiled nostalgically.  “You were the best.  The absolute best.  The undefeated champion. I had no idea Midgard possessed such champions as the Hulk.  You were the best of all the ones I ever caught.” 

Bruce froze in shock at the implication that she’d somehow defeated the Hulk.  At the implication of the word ‘caught’.”

Brunnhilde’s nostalgic expression vanished and she made a move to get up. 

He stopped her with a gesture, alarmed by the unsettled look on her face.  Seeing that expression, realizing he’d caused it hurt.  Strange and tentative as it was, still knowing nothing whatsoever about her, he still felt like she was a trusted friend.  He had a thousand more questions he wanted to ask, but her body language made it clear she was about to bolt.  “OK,” he said soothingly.  “We’ll get back to that.  Can you tell me what the Hulk is like?”

“Fun.  Funny.  We played games and laughed.  He was…” she paused, staring off into space, “…the only person I could trust there.”  She relaxed back into her chair.

Bemused at the thought of the Other Guy being fun and funny and trustworthy, Bruce kept watching her.  She settled in comfortably and kept talking, and the more she told him the more a smile played on her lips.  Bruce kept listening, trying to take it all in, feeling more and more that, like Alice, he’d gone right through the looking glass.


	14. Chapter 14

They’d started walking along the corridor side-by-side, but soon Loki pulled ahead of Thor.  Loki had been filled with jittery energy for the past few hours, continually pacing around their shared chambers, only stopping to pull out from nowhere a leather-bound notebook to write notes to himself in some unreadable language, then disappearing the book again to wherever he kept such things.

Thor admitted to himself that he felt equally on edge.  Now that he better understood the dangers facing them, though he remained certain of his own strength and prowess, he now understood only too well that overconfidence could lead to disaster.  The odds were against them.  This ship was vulnerable.  He had to find some way to keep his people safe.  This battle must be fought elsewhere.  Would the _galdr_ bring them the answers they needed?

Heimdall had moved to keep pace with Thor.  Loki, now several steps ahead, strode into the chamber where the _galdr_ was to be held without looking back. 

Thor and Heimdall entered the dimly lit room after him.  Ahead of them, Loki gave Eir a brief nod as he walked past her toward the center of the huge chamber.

Eir gestured for Thor and Heimdall to wait by her side.  “Welcome, my King.” 

Thor didn’t bother to protest her use of the title, despite his edict that no titles be used.  Habits, he found, died hard because they brought comfort to people.

Loki stopped several feet away from the far wall where eight women stood motionless and silent.  All of them were dressed in clothing so black their bodies merged with the shadows and only their faces and hands were visible.  Some faces were as dark as Heimdall’s, but all of them were filled with an inner glow, their eyes gleaming in the darkness, their features sharply visible.  The silence, the eerie stillness of the place made even the sound of Thor’s own breath seem intrusive. 

Seeing them all together, Thor felt a surge of ingrained respect for their combined power and a deep gratitude that so many of the vǫlur had survived Hela’s attack.  A further advantage:  among their numbers were three spækona, the most powerful seers that Asgard had ever produced.

Loki was moving from one woman to another, speaking to each one and each one replying to him in tones so low Thor could not make sense of the words.  When Loki finished speaking to the last woman he turned back, nodded to Thor and Heimdall, and walked to the exact center of the room.

“Stand here.” Eir turned to Thor and Heimdall and indicated a space a few feet inside the chamber.  “You know what to do.”

Thor knew what his part was to be: to stand, to watch, to witness.  But not through his eyes alone.

Eir approached Loki and they began speaking.  Thor studied the look on his brother’s face.  All of Loki’s jittery energy had coalesced into something intent, focused, aimed and ready, the look he had the instant a throwing knife was about to leave his hand. 

It felt strange, disconcerting, to be the witness not the participant, to be a follower, an observer, to be the one to follow orders, not give them.  More than strange; Thor admitted to himself he felt discomfort over not being able to directly participate in an event crucial to their survival.  He reminded himself that he was taking the same role in this Nine-Circle as Father had done the last time this ceremony was performed, with Heimdall sharing his Vision both times so the King could truly see the revealed possible futures.

Then, however, Mother has been at the center of the Circle.  Neither he nor Loki had been old enough to participate at that time.

Now, Loki would lead it. 

He reminded himself of the times he had followed Loki’s lead when his brother had taken him and others through magical caverns or mazes, taking them to their quarry or to dragon-guarded treasure or hidden relics. 

But always in these quests his own role was clear:  slay the dragon, claim the treasure.  Now, he had no active part.  This was no hunt for game or treasure; rather it was a hunt for information, for knowledge to be found of what lay in the universe around them now and in times yet to come. 

He felt a surge of gratitude that he and Loki were together again.  For most of his life Loki had been there.  He had never doubted Loki would always be with him.

Until he wasn’t.

Sorrow struck him.  They had lost so much.  Had he but known Loki lived when he fell into the Void, nothing would have prevented him from following, from saving his brother.

Now, his brother had returned after a terrible ordeal, and he would do everything he could to keep him by his side.  He would follow him now, as he had followed him on those long-ago quests, confident in Loki’s abilities to take them exactly where they needed to go. 

Eir stepped several feet away from Loki.  The moment she stopped, the other women began moving, half in one direction, half in the other, slowly surrounding Loki until the two women at the end met Eir from either side.  Each clasped her hands with the women at her sides.

The Nine-Circle was complete.  For a moment there was absolute stillness, complete silence.

From where he stood Thor could see Loki clearly in the gap between two of the women.  He considered this unprecedented act. 

For an instant the memory of the throne room’s broken ceiling and the sight of the bloodthirsty images revealed there flashed through his memory.  Everything about Asgard needed to be built anew, and the necessity of changing tradition was part of this.

For the first time ever, a man was at the center of the Circle. 

A new way for a new time. 

Loki tilted his head, looking up.  “It is time,” he said, and there was a faint hint of an echo to his words in the upper reaches of the vast hold. 

The women began to hum.

Thor reached out at the same instant Heimdall did.  They clasped hands, and suddenly Thor Saw as Heimdall Saw.  For an instant it was dizzying, to be able to see out of two eyes, not one, and to see so MUCH.  He adapted quickly and gazed in wonder at the visible power within the room.

He’d always been able to see the flickers of magic around Loki and the vǫlur, but now it seemed as if he had only seen this magic in muted, diluted shades.  Now the auras surrounding Loki and the vǫlur were so bright, so intensely vivid, that he had to blink and squint to see the corporeal bodies of his brother and the women through the swirling nebulae of their power.

He focused on Loki and it was as if he was seeing him for the first time, majestic and so very strange.  Emerald light shone around Loki like the corona around a star.   His face was brightly illuminated with light from no apparent source. 

Loki raised his arms so slowly the motion was almost imperceptible.  The humming became louder, stronger, rolling around the circle of women like a wave.  Loki continued to raise his arms.  The sound became louder, then broke into three different tones, deep and dark like the depths of caves; warm and bright like sparkling water; high and clear like a starlit sky.  Each women was surrounded by a bright aura – golds and scarlets and ambers, midnight colors of indigo and violet, whites like pearl and greens like grass and the purest blue Thor had ever beheld.

Then Yggdrasil appeared, the form of the great Tree taking shape around Loki, both enclosing him and leaving him clear to Heimdall’s and Thor’s Vision.

The humming became louder still, almost as if it were an entity of its own, eerie and imploring and welcoming and commanding.  Loki’s arms, elbows bent, were now extending up and the image of Yggdrasil flashed strong and intensely bright at the very center of the chamber, the Nine Realms hanging like bright fruit from its limbs.  At the very top an eagle’s powerful wings spread against the forming midnight sky, and below, at the root of the tree, a great dragon shifted and gnawed at the roots extending deep into a bottomless Well.  Growth and decay.  He’d been taught the symbolism of these creatures in the past.  Now he saw it as promise of the future.  Destruction of the past.  New meaning for new times.

The women began to chant powerful ancient words.  The middle three women sung the central notes, singing words of order, power, future, hope, preparation, knowledge, and learning.  Those to their right sung notes below that level, their voices telling of vast depths, of unseen hazards and known dangers, and of the power of all their ancestors.  The remaining women sung high notes, their voices soaring as they wove pictures of war and peace and the power of their warriors and called upon the future to show what it might bring.

Their voices rang out simultaneously, and yet Thor somehow heard each word every woman sang, absorbing their meanings in a great information rush that bypassed true consciousness into understanding and memory.  And now it was as if each woman was singing with more than one voice, a cascade of sound, nine times nine more powerful than anything Thor had ever heard before.

Loki’s hands began to move as if he were weaving.  Thor felt himself tense as all around the great Tree a web began to form – a web that would reveal to them their possible futures. 

Loki’s eyes went white, his mouth open in an ecstatic grimace as power flowed in torrents from the women into him and through him, expanding and transforming with the strength of his seiðr, radiating out through his hands, his long fingers.  Energy sparked through the air, as powerful as the lightning Thor commanded, focused in and flowing through his brother’s body, moving precisely with his every gesture.  Thor watched, awestruck.  He had never guessed at the extent of the power Loki could channel and command.  He tensed, waiting expectantly, wishing he could do more than watch.  The importance of he and Heimdall seeing the picture whole had been impressed upon him, yet the need for physical action surged through his body and mind.  He forced himself to remain still.

The image of the tree began to shrink, but still remained sharp and vivid despite its diminution in size.  Around it the web grew in ever more complicated spidery patterns, up and up and up into the heights of the chamber, thin lines of pale grey against the black, while clinging to it, diamond bright, appeared star after countless star.

The song grew louder and more complex; the image grew ever more complicated.  Thor watched, barely breathing, his hand tight in Heimdall’s.  Loki had explained they had chosen this hold for its height, fully as tall as the interior of Asgard’s throne room, and now the reason was clear:  The massive image filled the entire chamber.

Loki began rising up, his feet leaving the floor, levitating higher and higher through the core of the image.  The women raised their clasped hands to the ceiling, threw their heads back, opened their mouths wide and roared a powerful song that seemed drawn from the very roots of Yggdrasil.  Loki’s hands moved in a complicated pattern, and for one instant an image solidified and held still.  Four brightly colored gems flashed into being on the web.  Two clung to Midgard.  Another, orange in color, shone dimly much further away.  The fourth, purple-violet, shone brightly and much nearer. 

Something was moving in the dark spaces between, a darkness that was no realm, no star, but something else, full of menace and intent, roiling like a wyrm beneath the surface of a dark sea.  Thor watched it and knew it instantly:  Their great enemy. 

His right hand curled instinctively for a weapon; his left grasped Heimdall’s all the tighter, met by an equally crushing grip.  Their gazes tracked the convolutions of the web in sync, Heimdall directing their Gaze to everything they needed to see, to remember, to absorb everything they would need to know to save all of their lives.  More:  Thor could see it now.  To save not just their lives but a near-infinite number more, spreading from Realm to Realm, galaxy to galaxy, encompassing the universe itself. 

Loki was now floating in midair several feet above the chamber’s floor.  He was surrounded with a brilliant emerald aura which was itself held within a greater corona of white light.  Loki’s hands moved almost beyond Heimdall/Thor’s capacity to see as he fluidly banished each image, replaced it with another.  The light pouring out of him became almost blinding.

Jagged white light flashed in patterns on the web, lines appearing again between Midgard and other points and the dark thing between.  Flared, then disappeared and the lines disappeared into ash and reappeared again in another configuration. 

Thor watched in rising horror as each time the pattern reset, and again shifted, never repeating; and all was disaster, destruction, and death. 

Sometimes six Stones were present in the pattern; some only four.  New patterns continually emerged, bright light branching out and connecting various worlds and routes.  More patterns emerged, zigzagged, shot around the web and disappeared, most heralding destruction; a very few showing bright colors of gold and scarlet and emerald and silver, with the lines highlighting the web strong and vibrant.  Even here, though, most of those patterns were broken at the end and in all of those iterations the intensity of the light was suddenly cut cleanly in half.

**_That is half of all life, cut short_** _,_ something whispered from the depths of Yggdrasil’s roots, and it seemed Thor he heard the voices of three women speaking simultaneously.

**_The Norns!_ **

Thor’s hair stood on end.  For a moment everything in the chamber went utterly still, silent, motionless, cold as the depths of space itself.

Then energy surged forward again, the light now so intense he could no longer see Loki or the vǫlur,  The images on the web became even more rapid, and yet each imprinted itself clearly for that one tiny fragment of time on Heimdall’s/Thor’s vision.

More death.  More destruction.  But in a few – a very few –the black thing imploded and vanished. 

Suddenly the colors of the gems flared and converged, then suddenly dimmed and receded.  **_What did that mean?_**   Thor’s hand on Heimdall was near bone-crushing, as was Heimdall’s in return.  

The women’s voices grew slower, softer, and they began lowering their arms.  Thor forced himself to remain still, to continue watching. 

Loki, his eyes now closed, drifted downward until his feet lightly touched the floor.  Yggdrasil once again came to the fore; the web receded.  The stars vanished, and then the web.  Finally Yggdrasil itself, and all the realms, faded slowly away, as the women stopped singing, lowered their arms, and unclasped their hands. 

Thor let go of Heimdall’s hand and his vision instantly snapped back to what he ordinarily saw.  He staggered for one instant, then adjusted again to seeing out of only one eye.

Loki stumbled.  Thor rushed forward before Eir had taken half a step toward him.  He put an arm around Loki’s waist, then startled as the remnants of power around Loki’s body called to the lightning within him, feeling the way Loki’s magic inhabited him in a way Thor had never felt before.  Was this an echo of Heimdall’s vision? 

Loki leaned into him, resting his head against Thor’s, and Thor held him even closer, drinking in the sensation of the connection between their powers.  The feeling began receding.  Loki pulled back slightly, got his balance, and turned in the circle of Thor’s arm to meet his gaze, a final echo of that earlier brightness still glowing in his eyes.  He gave Thor a fierce, triumphant grin.

“There are paths to victory,” Heimdall intoned and Loki showed his teeth in a predatory grin.

“Yes, brother,” Thor said, an enormous rush of hope filling for him as flashes of the images of the ways forward raced through his mind.  It was time to plan now.  He was eager to take the next steps.  Ferociously determined to win this war.

Thor saw that same eagerness in Loki’s eyes, a diamond-hard determination to succeed.  And something else, as dark as the heart of a black hole:  the thirst for vengeance.  The look of their Father, Thor suddenly realized, when he was ready to fight a righteous battle. 

“I want to destroy him,” Loki said through his teeth.  “I want to destroy him utterly.”  Thor grabbed his forearm; Loki returned the gesture.

“What next, brother?” 

“We call the Council  We plan.  Then we fight.  And win.”

Thor showed his teeth in a grin anticipating war and victory.  He held Loki even closer. 

Eir had joined Heimdall and the vǫlur crowded close.  “We saw the paths of the futures.”  Heimdall rumbled a confirmation.  “There are several ways we can win this war.”

Loki looked at the assembled women and his lips stretched into a smile of pride.  “Thank you, honored ones,” he said.  They dipped their heads in shallow bows.  He broke away from Thor and held out his hands, going from one woman to the next.  He whispered something Thor could not hear to each of them and each of them said something to him. 

Loki returned to Thor’s side. “For Asgard!” Loki said, sounding like a war commander.  They all echoed his words, Thor the loudest of them all.  Thor met Loki’s gaze, and saw something in Loki’s expression change, and settle into confidence and certainty.  Thor had thought he knew how to be proud of another’s achievements, but the immensity of his pride in Loki was levels above anything he had felt before.  What Loki had done here and what they would do together in the days to come would help assure the future of their people.

Loki held his gaze for a moment, pupils blown open by the power still flickering in jagged sparks around him.  His expression said without words his complete commitment to their course.  “Let us go to Thor’s chambers and await the Council. Eir, bring the mortal Bruce Banner.  He is part of this too.”

Loki went out ahead of them all, and Thor only briefly wondered why it now seemed natural to let his brother go first.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two things I learned from “Thor: Ragnarok”: Witches can foretell the future, and witches wear black.
> 
> [[Loki: “I can't see into the future. I'm not a witch.” Thor: “No? Then why do you dress like one?”]]


End file.
